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Excavations at the Cistercian Abbey of Vale Royal, Cheshire, 1958
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 29 November 2011
Extract
The Cistercian abbey of Vale Royal was, as the name implies, a royal foundation and as such will be included among the buildings described in the forthcoming Ministry of Works publication, A History of The King's Works. In April 1958 Mr. H. M. Colvin approached the writer with a view to arranging the excavation of the east end of the abbey church and so completing the plan, much of which had been obtained by excavation in 1911–12. The project received the enthusiastic support of I.C.I. Salt Division, which had its offices in the present mansion of Vale Royal, and indeed it is true to say that without their very generous provision of labour, equipment, and other facilities no excavation would have taken place. It was hoped that a comparatively short campaign would suffice but in the event the excavation continued from June to December 1958; the complexity of the plan and the wholesale robbing of walls to foundation level or lower meant that an area excavation proved necessary instead of the selective trenching which had been intended.
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- Copyright © The Society of Antiquaries of London 1962
References
page 183 note 1 Now merged in the Alkali Division.
page 184 note 1 I am indebted to Mr. Colvin for a sight of his paper in draft form from which, with his kind permission, I have extracted the relevant facts.
page 184 note 2 This is discussed in greater detail below (see p. 186).
page 185 note 1 Later privately printed, in an abridged form, as Notes on the Cistercian Abbey of St. Mary, Vale Royal, Cheshire. The plan which appears there is reproduced in Arch. Journ. xciv (1937), 316.Google Scholar
page 186 note 1 In Building in England down to 1540 (Oxford, 1952), pp. 439–41.Google Scholar
page 186 note 2 Writer's italics. The precise wording is comenceant la dite oeuereigne de les chapelles auntdites al ligement table paramont la terre en hautesse tana' la crest del alure duce chapelle esteant ioust le dit coer de nouel par le dit William faite.
page 188 note 1 This corresponds to the buttress located by Pendleton and interpreted by him as the eastern limit of the church.
page 190 note 1 Kindly identified by Mr. R. H. M. Dolley, F.S.A.
page 192 note 1 The Ledger-Book of Vale Royal Abbey, ed. Brownbill, J. (Lanes, and Ches. Record Soc, 1914), p. 163.Google Scholar
page 195 note 1 Gilyard-Beer, R., Abbeys (H.M.S.O., 1958), fig- 7. v.Google Scholar
page 195 note 2 Willis, R., (ed.) Facsimile of the Sketch-book of Wilars de Honecourt (London, 1859), pl. XXVIII.Google Scholar
page 195 note 3 Congrès archéologique, 1926 (Rouen, 1927), p. 405.Google Scholar
page 195 note 4 Coutan, , L'ancienne cathédrale d'Avranches (Rouen, 1902).Google Scholar
page 195 note 5 Bulletin archéologique, 1907, p. 173 and pl. XXVIII.Google Scholar
page 195 note 6 Congrès archéologique 1926 (Rouen, 1927), pp. 550, 557.Google Scholar
page 195 note 7 The credit for observing the analogue must go to Mr. J. H. Harvey, F.S.A. For the Toledo chevet, cf. Street, G. E., Gothic Architecture in Spain (2nd edn., 1869), pp. 242–4, 424.Google Scholar
page 195 note 8 R. de Lasteyrie, L'architecture réligieuse en France à l'époque gothique, i, fig. 185.
page 197 note 1 This section is largely based on suggestions made by Mr. Harvey.
page 197 note 2 de Lasteyrie, op. cit., fig. 25.
page 197 note 3 In a letter to the writer.
page 197 note 4 de Lasteyrie, op. cit., fig. 92.
page 197 note 5 Bond, , Gothic Architecture in England (1906), p. 154.Google Scholar
page 197 note 6 Notably The Ledger-Book of Vale Royal Abbey, published from a seventeenth-century transcript in Lancs. and Ches. Record Society, lxviii (1914); the building accounts, drawn from Exchequer K. R. Enrolled Accounts, are given in the appendix.Google Scholar
page 197 note 7 Cf. H. J. Hewitt, Mediaeval Cheshire (Chetham Society, vol. 88, N.S.), ch. vi (Building), passim and Appendix C; and D. Knoop and G. P. Jones, The First Three Years of the Building of Vale Royal Abbey 1278–80 (extr. from Trans. Quatuor Coronati Lodge, vol. XIV).
page 198 note 1 Hewitt, op. cit., p. 90 (cf. Ledger-Book, pp. 195, 196, 203, 218, 223).
page 198 note 2 Pendleton, op. cit., p. 22.
page 198 note 3 A. J. Taylor, The Cloister of Vale Royal Abbey (Chester Arch. Journ. XXXVII, 295–7).
page 198 note 4 Hewitt, op. cit., p. 92, citing Ledger-Book, p. 204 and T. R. Book, 279 (Register of the Black Prince), fol. 13, item 25. For the extent of Delamere Forest in the Middle Ages, cf. Hewitt, op. cit., map facing p. 1 and Appendix A.
page 198 note 5 For the discovery of four lead ingots at Rievaulx Abbey and references to the salvage of lead at the Dissolution, cf. Antiq. Journ. XXXII, 199–202.
page 198 note 6 Hewitt, op.cit., p. 93, citing C.P.R. (1281–92), 69.
page 198 note 7 Ledger-Book, pp. 196, 197.
page 198 note 8 Ibid., pp. 197, 198.
page 199 note 1 Ledger-Book, p. 44.
page 199 note 2 C.A.J. xxxiii, 32–39 and xxxvii, 133–40.
page 199 note 3 Kindly identified by Mr. R. H. M. Dolley, F.S.A.
page 201 note 1 Cf. London Museum Medieval Catalogue, p. 253.
page 201 note 2 Ibid., pp. 231 et seq.