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Buildings, The First Stone monastery, 1138-c1150
Written by locationyork.co.uk   
Building history - The first stone monastery, c.1138-c.1150

Although a fabric fund was started in 1135, lack of proper endowments probably saw to it that permanent building in stone was not undertaken until the late 11305. It continued until interrupted by the fire of 1147, and was resumed soon afterwards, by which time the plan of the first monastery had been laid down and most of its buildings had been erected.

The abbey church was from the first designed on a grand scale and had the short, aisleless, square-ended presbytery and square transept chapels characteristic of early Cistercian architecture, although the inner chapels were unusually deep. It was being built during the same years as the second church of Clairvaux and the church of Fontenay and it shared with them not only the main lines of its plan but also many other features that were distinctive of Cistercian building in Burgundy, which are best seen in the transepts. In the nave general Cistercian austerity is shown by the clerestorey stated in simplest architectural terms, and by the absence of a triforium stage, whilst influence from the Burgundian cradle of the Order is responsible for the pointed arcades and the pointed barrel vaults set at right angles to them in the aisles. But the heavier and richer Anglo-Norman style contributes the massive cylindrical piers, the arch mouldings, and the capitals and corbels with their scallop and leaf ornament.

By 1147 only the eastern arm of the church and the five easternmost bays of the nave and aisles had been built, satisfying tie ritual needs of the choir-monks but leaving those of the lay-brothers for the future. The south aisle wall, however, was carried on for nine bays to complete the enclosure of the cloister, which was the same size as it is today.

The claustral buildings that went with this half-finished church were lower and smaller in scale than the present ones, and had none of the characteristics of the plan later adopted by the Order. They followed the old Benedictine arrangement, with day-stairs in the east range and refectory lying parallel to the cloister in the south range.
 
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