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Kirkstall Abbey is a Cistercian monastery founded in 1152 by monks from Fountains Abbey in the Aire Valley near Leeds, West Yorkshire, which became one of the most significant religious houses in medieval northern England. The substantial ruins visible today date primarily from the late twelfth and thirteenth centuries and include the abbey church with its characteristic Romanesque and Early Gothic architectural features, together with ranges of monastic buildings arranged around the cloister. The precinct also contains a prehistoric cup and ring marked rock, a natural stone bearing Bronze Age cupule and linear rock art that testifies to human activity in this location many thousands of years before the abbey's establishment. Kirkstall was dissolved during the Reformation in 1539 and subsequently passed to private ownership, the survival of its extensive masonry making it one of the finest examples of medieval monastic architecture remaining in Yorkshire.
Kirkstall Abbey and precinct including a prehistoric cup and ring marked rock is a scheduled monument protected by Historic England under reference 1018149. View the official record →
Kirkstall Abbey is a Cistercian monastery founded in 1152 by monks from Fountains Abbey in the Aire Valley near Leeds, West Yorkshire, which became one of the most significant religious houses in medieval northern England. It is designated a Scheduled Ancient Monument by Historic England (NHLE) under reference 1018149.
Kirkstall Abbey and precinct including a prehistoric cup and ring marked rock is a Scheduled Ancient Monument, legally protected by Historic England (NHLE) — the body responsible for designating and safeguarding heritage sites in England. The official designation reference is 1018149.
Several scheduled monuments lie within 10 km, including Stone hut circle settlement in Clayton Wood on the south west side of Iveson Drive (2.4 km), Stone hut circle settlement in Iveson Wood (2.6 km), Gritstone pillar with three cup marks in the north pavement of the A65 at Horsforth, 440m south east of the roundabout at Low Fold (2.8 km).
This page is just one thread. A full Aubrey report pulls together 15 strands of Kirkstall Abbey and precinct including a prehistoric cup and ring marked rock's history, each drawn from the record and mapped to the exact spot:
Every location is different. Not every section appears for every place, only what the historical record actually holds turns up in a report.
Kirkstall Abbey and precinct including a prehistoric cup and ring marked rock stands on Pennine Lower Coal Measures Formation And South Wales Lower Coal Measures Formation (Undifferentiated), bedrock that formed in the Westphalian. The rock here is mudstone, siltstone, sandstone, coal, ironstone and ferricrete.