York Guides

THE abbey was set out on its existing plan from the first, but so great an extent of building must have taken a good many years to reach its permanent form, and temporary buildings must have served for some time. The earliest work in the church is in the south transept, and the church cannot have been very far advanced when the convent settled on the new site in 1177. There are signs of a pause when two or three bays of the nave had been built, and the completion of the west front, which had the usual Cistercian porch, must date from the early years of the thirteenth century.

The lay brothers' buildings, to the west of the cloister, were probably the first part of the abbey to be finished in masonry. The eastern range of the cloister, with the chapter house and monks' dormitory, is but little later, and was doubtless ready for occupation by 1177.