Byland Abbey: History
• Sources
• Foundation
• Consolidation
• Later Middle Ages
• Dissolution

Byland Abbey: Buildings
• Precinct
• Church
• Cloister
• Sacristy
• Library
• Chapter House
• Parlour
• Dormitory
• Warming House
• Day Room
• Refectory
• Kitchen
• Lay Brothers' Range

Ironworking at Byland

Iron chisel from Kirkstall Abbey
© Cistercians in Yorkshire
<click to enlarge>

Iron-working was actively pursued on two of Byland’s granges – Bentley and Denby - where the community was working forges by the late twelfth century.(67) Iron was important for the manufacture of a number of implements, including tools, horseshoes and keys.

To manufacture iron, the community had to obtain rights to work iron and to dig fuel to power the forges, and also to negotiate access to the mines and permission to transport the ore away from the site. William of Denby’s grant to Byland of land in Denby and pasture in Claverlay, stated that the iron ore here could be dug freely and that the community could have free entry and exit to the area to transport the ore. William, however, was to have this enclosure from May until harvest for his own soul and a token payment of eighteen pennies.(68)

English lead
On several occasions in the late twelfth century, Henry II [1154-1189] sent lead from Yorkshire and Derbyshire to help with the building of the new church at Clairvaux. It has been estimated that over 500 tonnes was sent in 1176 and 1177.

[A History of Lead Mining in the Pennines, ed. Raistrick and Jennings, pp. 26-27.]

In the early thirteenth century, Jordan of Flockton notified the archbishop of York and the chapter of St Peter’s that he had granted the monks of Byland access through his lands from their forge at Bentley to Denby.(69) Following its negotiations with Swain of Bretton, his son Hugh, and various other men of the locality, Byland was accorded the right to take stone for burning at the community’s grange at Bentley, and to have free entrance and exit for themselves and their men. (70)

Read more about Cistercian industry