More information : A broad but degraded bank which lies parallel with and just inside the western and southern boundary wall of Jervaulx Park would appear to represent the remains of two sides of the medieval precinct boundary of Jervaulx Abbey. In the west the bank is first traceable immediately south of the modern park entrance, but has been much reduced by presumably 19th-century ploughing and is no more than a very slight swelling. It gains in substance and height south of The Old Gatehouse (SE 18 NE 5), but is here overplanted with mature parkland trees, some of which have fallen leaving large holes. At the south-west corner of the Park, it curves round with the wall and continues along the southern edge of the Park before passing into the grounds of Abbey Hill House in the east. This stretch of bank is better preserved, with in places an internal height of over 1m, but the modern road surface outside the Park appears to have been raised level with the top of the bank and there is now no corresponding external fall-off of height. The Park wall here runs along the bank's summit and not at its foot. The grounds of Abbey Hill House were not perambulated, but the earthwork can be seen to continue on APs (1b) curving to the north (picked up by the Yorkshire Dales AP mapping as a medieval boundary feature, MORPH NY.880.7.9), and re-emerging into Jervaulx Park east of the house. There is no evidence that this bank marking the western and southern sides of the precinct was ever surmounted by a wall. In the east the bank is traceable running north through the Park as a low flat-topped embankment (picked up by the Yorkshire Dales AP mapping as MORPH NY.880.7.7, and mistakenly identified as a medieval field boundary), for the most part overlain by a modern track leading out on to the Ure floodplain. There are suggestions of an external ditch along this side of the precinct bank, but this is perhaps more likely to be a perimeter road (see SE 18 NE 165). East of Mark Hill the precinct boundary swings back west away from the modern track and begins to run along the edge of the esker behind the abbey. The earthwork form of this stretch is very different, being now much narrower and more akin to a ruined wall. However, west of Mark Hill the feature has been destroyed by later landscaping, and the position and exact course of the northern side of the precinct boundary is uncertain; rather than following the top of the esker back round to the west it is possible that it ran down the face of the esker to include the alleged abbey mill site (SE 18 NE 151) within its circuit.
This suggests that the precinct was almost square in plan centred at c SE 172 856, measured a maximum of 575m west to east by at least 500m north to south, and enclosed approximately 27.75ha within a circuit some 2km long. In the west, a detached length of bank up to 10m wide and 0.5m high runs for some 60m along the southern edge of the modern metalled road through the Park and looks as though it should also be part of the precinct boundary, raising the possibility that is one side of an entrance passage at either end of which once stood the main outer and inner abbey gatehouses (see SE 18 NE 149). There was probably another minor gate in the eastern side of the precinct (SE 18 NE 150).
That part of the boundary which lies within Jervaulx Park was surveyed at 1:1000 scale as part of the RCHME Jervaulx Abbey Survey (feature BF1). See the report (1a) and plans in the NMR for full details. (1) |