North Yorkshire England
|Cemetery notes and/or description:|
Sawley was a Cistercian Abbey founded in 1147 by the Abbot Benedict, twelve monks and ten lay brothers from Newminster Abbey in Northumberland. Initially they had a wooden building provided by my ancestor William de Percy. Building in stone commenced in the 1150s and although few documentary records survive, there is architectural evidence of new work in the late 1300s. The monks struggled to make a success of the land because of the poor drainage and wet climate and considered leaving the site in about 1200. The head of the order, the Abbot of Clairvaux, recommended that it be dissolved or move. A further grant of land from the Percy family ensured survival.