Sawley was founded on the banks of the R. Ribble,
Craven, in 1147. Like Roche, it
was a daughter-house of Newminster,
Northumberland, and thus affiliated to Fountains
and joined to the Clairvaux line. Sawley had a rather unconventional
beginning, for William de Percy, a leading figure in the North,
built a church at Craven before he had negotiated with Newminster
to send a colony of monks there. From the outset the monks battled
with dampness, floods, famine, and crop failure; after forty years
of hardship they were ready to disband and sought dissolution. The
founding family intervened and thwarted their efforts, but were
at least moved to increase the endowment of the house to help the
monks better survive.
The community faced particular problems in 1296 with the relocation
of the monks of Stanlaw, Cheshire, to Whalley
some five or ten kilometres away. The Sawley monks complained of
competition for resources, and blamed the escalation of prices on
the new arrivals. Whilst the community struggled economically and
financially throughout its history, the monks were leading activists
at the Dissolution, and received considerable support from the locals;
this suggests that they were valued and esteemed by their neighbours.
An eminent member of Sawley was Prior William Rymington, who served
as chancellor of the Cistercian college of Rewley,
Oxford in the late fourteenth century. Another notable monk of the
house was the spiritual writer, Stephen
of Sawley (d. 1252).