Vale Royal Abbey is a former medieval abbey and later country house in Whitegate, England. The precise location and boundaries of the abbey are difficult to determine in today's landscape. The original building was founded by the Lord Edward, later Edward I, for Cistercian monks. Edward had supposedly taken a vow during a rough sea crossing in the 1260s. Civil wars and political upheaval delayed the build until 1272, the year he inherited the throne. The original site at Darnhall was unsatisfactory, so was moved a few miles north to the Delamere Forest. Edward intended the structure to be on a grand scale—had it been completed it would have been the largest Cistercian monastery in the country—but his ambitions were frustrated by recurring financial difficulties.
Early during construction, England became involved in war with Wales. As the treasury was thus in need of resources, Vale Royal lost all of its grants, skilled masons and builders. When work resumed in the late 13th century, the building was considerably smaller than originally planned. The project encountered other problems. The abbey was mismanaged and poor relations with the local population sparked outbreaks of violence on a number of occasions. In one such episode in 1336, the abbot was killed by a mob. Internal discipline was also frequently bad; in the 14th century the monks were often accused of serious crimes including rape, and the abbots were seen as protecting them. The abbey was devastated at least twice: in the early 1300s a fire destroyed the entire monastic grange, and in 1359—soon after building work had recommenced under the patronage of Edward the Black Prince—a great storm caused the collapse of the massive nave.
Vale Royal was closed in 1538 by Henry VIII during his dissolution of the monasteries campaign, although not without controversy. In the course of the proceedings, the abbot was accused of treason and murder, and he in turn accused the King's men of fraudulently forging the abbot's signature on essential legal documents but the abbey's closure was inevitable, and its estates were sold to a member of the local Cheshire gentry, Thomas Holcroft. Holcroft pulled much of it down (including the church), although he incorporated some of the cloister buildings into the new mansion he built on the site in the 1540s. This was subsequently considerably altered and extended by successive generations of Holcrofts. Vale Royal came into the possession of the Cholmondeley family during the early 1600s, and remained the family seat for more than 300 years.
The Cholmondeley family remodelled the exterior during the 18th century, and Thomas Cholmondeley carried out extensive work in the early 1800s. Substantial alterations were carried out under the auspices of Edward Blore in 1833 and by John Douglas from 1860. Sold soon after World War II, it was turned into a private golf club. The building remains habitable and contains parts of the medieval abbey, including its refectory and kitchen. The foundations of the church and cloister have been excavated; Vale Royal Abbey, a scheduled monument, is listed in the National Heritage List for England as a Grade II* listed building.
Foundation
Vale Royal Abbey was originally founded in Darnhall by the Lord Edward, the future Edward I, before his accession to the throne. He was supposedly caught in rough weather crossing the English Channel in the early 1260s, during which, the abbey's own chronicler later wrote, the King's son and his entourage feared for their lives. Edward pleaded with the Virgin Mary to intercede, and vowed to found an abbey in her name if they were saved. According to the chronicle, the sea calmed almost immediately and the ships returned safely to England. When the last man had stepped ashore, the chronicler continues, the storm resumed more violently than ever and Edward's ship was destroyed in the harbour.
This chronology, however, does not fit with what is known of Edward's movements in this period. His only crusade was in 1270, after which he did not return until his father Henry III had died in 1272. By that time, Darnhall Abbey's foundation charter had already been granted. The charter mentions the King being "sometime in danger upon the sea", and it has been suggested by a recent biographer that it refers to a stormy English Channel crossing during the 1260s. Michael Prestwich has noted a crusader connection for Edward's new foundation: the first charter concerned with the project is dated four years earlier than the foundation charter, in August 1270, just before Edward left on crusade. Prestwich suggests that Edward probably founded the abbey more as a plea for Mary's future protection during his crusade rather than her past intervention at sea.
Regardless of Edward's intentions when founding the abbey, the deteriorating political situation and eventual civil war between his father and the nobility —in which Edward played a prominent role— stalled plans for the abbey's build. In 1265 the rebel barons were defeated at the Battle of Evesham, and the following year negotiations were completed for the establishment of a Cistercian monastery in Darnhall in Cheshire. This was to be paid for with the manor house and estate of the earls of Chester, which were now in royal hands. In August 1270, Edward granted another charter at Winchester to his new abbey with a further endowment of land and churches.
Closure of Darnhall Abbey The abbey's build was problematic. Preparation took considerable time, and the first monks—led by Abbot John Chaumpeneys—did not arrive at Darnhall from Dore Abbey (Vale Royal's motherhouse) until 1274. The new abbey provoked anger and resistance from local people, who believed that it (and its newly granted lands) threatened their livelihoods. The abbey had received the forestry rights and free warren of Darnhall Forest, which surrounded the villages, and in which the villagers had previously had free rein.
Darnhall's location was unsuitable for a large construction. It may have been intended as a temporary site; in 1276 Edward (by then King) agreed to move the abbey to a more suitable location. A new site was chosen in nearby Over, on the edge of the Forest of Mondrem. On 13 August 1277, the king and Queen Eleanor, their son Alphonso and a number of nobles arrived at Over to lay the foundation stones of the new abbey for the high altar. Chaumpeneys then said a celebratory mass. In 1281, the monks moved from Darnhall to temporary accommodations on the Vale Royal site while the abbey was being built. Pevsner's Buildings of England described Vale Royal as a "late foundation as Cistercian settlements go". It was intended to be the largest and most elaborate Cistercian church in Christian Europe.
The precise location and boundaries of the site is difficult to determine. It lay broadly within the monks' manor of Conersley, on parcels of land later renamed Vale Royal after the royal patron. The southern boundary was probably around Petty Pool, past Earnslow to the River Weaver. Its total area was about .
Construction Building
During an excavation in 1958, the site of the abbey—at the time, heavily wooded and similar to its medieval appearance—was described as:
Edward had grand ambitions for Vale Royal, as an important abbey, surpassing all the other houses of its order in Britain in scale and beauty. It was further intended to be symbolic of the wealth and power of the English monarchy and his own piety and greatness. He intended the abbey to be more grandiose than his grandfather King John's abbey at Beaulieu, and as a project, it was comparable to his father's Westminster Abbey. Henry, for example, had planned to be buried at Westminster, and Edward may have had similar plans for himself at Vale Royal. Vale Royal Abbey was his largest—although only known—major act of piety; he did not fund any other houses. The building's plans reflect Edward's enthusiasm. Fifty-one masons were employed from around the country; they were rarely local men, and may have been pressed into service. The chief architect, Walter of Hereford (one of the foremost of his day), began work on a huge, elaborate High Gothic church the size of a cathedral.
Plans were extremely detailed; the abbey was to be furnished with thirty copes, two silver crosses, six chalices, a gold collar, a silver pastoral staff and other valuable possessions. It was to be long and cruciform in shape, with a central tower. The east end was semi-circular, with a chevet of 13 radiating chapels, some of which were square, and some polygonal. Each of the transepts had—as was common with Cistercian churches—a row of three chapels on its eastern side. South of the church stood a cloister square, surrounded by the domestic buildings. The undermaster of the works from 1278 to 1280—and paid three shillings a week—was John of Battle, who would later build the King's memorial crosses after Eleanor's death. Although Walter of Hereford initially seems to have found difficulty in gathering skilled masons to the project, in the second and third years recruitment was much improved. At the same time, however, the number of masons employed decreased from 92 in 1277 to 53 by 1280, who were paid between £200 and £260 over the three years.
According to contemporary accounts for 1277 to 1281, 35,000 cartloads of stone—over 30 per day—were brought over rough roads nine miles from the Eddisbury quarries, five miles to the west. Timber came from local forests—particularly Delamere and Mondrem—to build workshops and dwellings, which together cost 45 shillings. A total of £3,000 was spent on construction during these four years, and in 1283 it was arranged that £1,000 per annum would be set aside for the ongoing building. Funds were to be taken straight from the King's wardrobe. The King put one of his personal clerks—one Leonius, son of Leonius—in charge of the financial administration, appointing him Chamberlain of the city of Chester and custodian of the King's works at Vale Royal. Putting one man in charge of both posts was intended to accelerate the speed at which the abbey received its money, as until then, the local Exchequer received money which then had to be dispersed to the work's administrator. Leonius held this post for the next three years, with the "full cooperation" of the local justice in what Leonius described as "the expenses incurred in the works of the lord King at Vale Royal".
In the early 1280s, the king greatly expanded the initial endowment, and made large donations of cash and materials. Money was plentiful and work progressed quickly. Initially providing 1,000 marks in cash for the project, Edward also provided the monks with revenue from his earldom of Chester; in 1281, the Justice of Chester was instructed to disburse the same amount to the monks each year. Leonius moved on to other projects that year, and the abbot was placed in personal charge of the works' administration. Two years later, sufficient progress had been made to allow the new church to be consecrated by the Bishop of Durham, Anthony Bek; Edward and his court attended the service. The King donated a relic of the True Cross which he had captured on his crusade to the abbey. In 1287 the abbot ordered a selection of marble columns and bases to be made for the cloister. These came from the Isle of Purbeck, and were created by Masters John Doget and Ralph of Chichester to Walter of Hereford's design, at a cost to the abbey of 3s. 6d. The abbot put down a deposit of £52 for the building work generally. During the winter months open stonework was covered with bundled hay to protect it from the elements.
Financial problems