On Saturday we popped up to Ravenstonedale for some red squirrel spotting. We decided to visit the church whilst we were there, and the ruins of a Gilbertine Priory which are in the grounds of St Oswald's Church. .
The Gilbertine Order of Canons Regular was founded around 1130 by Saint Gilbert in Sempringham, Lincolnshire, where Gilbert was the parish priest. It was the only completely English religious order and came to an end in the 16th century at the time of the Dissolution of the Monasteries. The ruins in Ravenstonedale are the only example of a Gilbertine order in the North West of England; the majority of the monasteries are in the East of England, primarily Yorkshire and Lincolnshire.
The Priory was only small, and only housed monks. Many of the priories were home to both men and women, but this wasn't the case in Ravenstonedale.
After the dissolution of the monasteries the buildings were probably torn down or adapted for other purposes. In 1681 the site was visited by Thomas Machell, Vicar of Kirkby Thore and antiquarian. He described a cloister or quadrangle 20 yards square with rooms 6-7 yards wide. Some of these were vaulted, probably at ground floor level, as can be seen at Shap Abbey were the cloister is about the same size as that described by Machell at Ravenstonedale.
St Oswald's dates from 1744, so it is likely that it was built on the site of the ruins and that some of the worked masonry came from the ruins of the Priory.
A fascinatng glimspe into the past of Ravenstonedale.
