Off the beaten track this place is huge and the gatehouse is the largest remaining in the country. Very impressive and loved by artists. You can go inside for, a fee up, the new staircase.
Within the grounds stand the ruins of the monastic buildings, notably the elegantly decorated octagonal chapter house of 1282-1308.
An early example of brick building in England, it proclaimed the wool trade-based prosperity of one of the wealthiest English Augustinian monasteries. Its founder Sir William le Gros, Earl of Yorkshire, was buried here. (Will the Fat)
It is free to wander around it and I find it very atmosphering at dusk and eerie. I swear I have heard whispering voices. By day it is a lovely place to visit.
They say if you take stone from the abbey you will die and there is a legend that a manor house build of it suddenly collapsed.
Now you will think me mad but once on a sunny day I was walking back to the gatehouse from the chapter house and found myself rooted to the spot. My friends asked what was wrong and I said I couldn't move my legs and I couldn't! They pulled me and suddenly I was free. NO idea what it was but it scared me! read more