page_title: Dale Abbey (ruin)
section_title: Abbey buildings
hierarchical_section_title: Dale Abbey (ruin) / After dissolution / Abbey buildings
caption_attribution_description: English: Joseph Wright of Derby. Landscape with Dale Abbey and Church Rocks. c.1785. Oil on canvas. 72.4 x 99 cm. Sheffield City Art Galleries, Sheffield, UK.
context_page_description: Dale Abbey, also known as the Abbey of Stanley Park, was a religious house, close to Ilkeston in Derbyshire. Its ruins are located at the village of Dale Abbey, which is named after it. Its foundation legend portrays it as developing from a hermitage, probably in the early 12th century. After several false starts, it was finally constituted as an abbey in 1204. It was affiliated to the Premonstratensians, an order of canons regular in which it played, at times, a leading part among English Houses. It acquired a large number of small properties, concentrated in areas of the East Midlands, developed a network of granges and appropriated a number of lucrative parish churches. Its discipline and reputation varied considerably, particularly in the 15th century, and it seems to have fallen away from the originally austerity. By 1536 its income was well below the threshold set for the Dissolution of Lesser Monasteries. Although there were accusations of grave immorality, the abbey was allowed to pay a fine to continue its existence until 1538.
context_section_description: The decay of the abbey buildings was intentional, as the commissioners had the roof removed to make it uninhabitable, thus hurrying the former chapter on to their new homes. However, Dale seems to have suffered more than most from use as a convenient quarry for new buildings. It was probably Sir Henry Sacheverell, the steward,  who removed to Morley church a large part of the cloister, with painted glass, an arch and a tomb slab. Sir Henry Willoughby used a large quantity of stone from Dale to build a wall to surround Risley Hall. Local antiquaries found evidence of the reuse of stone from Dale in mason's marks on local buildings, notably sixteen such marks on a single building in Stanton by Dale, probably the work of Michael Willoughby in the late 16th century. One even turned up on a lock on the Erewash Canal. A number of houses at Dale incorporate stone from the abbey. The ground floor of the northern end of Friar House, for example, is built of dressed stone, contrasting with the timber framing of the rest of the building. Abbey House incorporates a large section of abbey masonry which has escaped dispersal, a chimney and fireplaces, thought to be part of the abbey kitchen. However, the abbey still had a considerable amount above ground in 1727, when it was drawn for Samuel and Nathaniel Buck's Views of Ruins of Castles and Abbeys in England. While the great east window was much as today, the entire south wall of the nave still stood, large parts of the adjoining claustral buildings were recognisable and the gateway to a garden or close on the north side of the church was visible. In 1730 William Stukeley found the kitchen, hall (presumably the refectory), abbot's parlour in good condition, with ceilings still panelled in oak, and a gatehouse. He made a plan that was very rough but nevertheless gave a clear idea of the surviving abbey church and cloisters. On an earlier visit, before 1724, he had been more interested in the hermitage, which he illustrated for his Itinerarium curiosum
  
  The decay of the building in the mid-18th century must have been very rapid. A landscape featuring the abbey painted by Joseph Wright of Derby in the 1780s makes clear that the east window was the most striking feature of the site. In 1789 John Byng discovered:
  "Of all that is described in the print [Buck's], as existing only 6o years ago, (belonging to noblemen, to whom we join an idea of taste) nothing now remains but the lofty arch, which P. did not walk down to, but I took post as near as I dared from a vicious bull, and executed a drawing with more success (I think) than usual. Indeed this bull was its only guard: and I must again express my wonted surprise that a nobleman (of taste I have heard Ld. Stamford to be) who owns, and sometimes visits it, shou'd not enclose, and plant about it; and then it wou'd appear to great advantage."
   James Pilkington's comments of the same year confirm Byng's impression:
  According to tradition the church at Dale was a very grand and magnificent building. It contained several large windows on the north and south sides, and one at the east end in the chancel, which was very spacious and lofty. The arch is yet standing. It is nearly perfect and looks very beautiful.
  So by this date the building looked very much as it does today: reduced to its east window and a few less obvious traces, like the kitchen chimney at Abbey House, with only footings to mark its former extent. There was a superstition that if the arch collapsed the village would be subject to tithes.
caption: Landscape with Dale Abbey and Church Rocks. c.1785. Joseph Wright of Derby
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