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

Water management at Byland

Every monastic community required a reliable water supply not only for washing, drinking, cooking and brewing, but for liturgical purposes, for industrial work and, not least of all, to remove waste from the site. Water management meant working with nature, to make quality water available in some places, and to provide a strong current in others, for example, to power mills and carry away waste. Water management also meant removing water from where it was not needed, whether this was rainwater that might cause flooding, waste water from the kitchens, or waste products. This could be a highly complex process, and the community’s survival was effectively dependent on a secure supply of water.

Probable remains of one of the dams at Stocking
© Cistercians in Yorkshire
<click to enlarge>

The site at new Byland was in many ways unsuited to the establishment of a monastic community, for no river ran through the area and the monks were completely dependent on the local springs and rainfall for their water supply. Moreover, the land here was swampy, and required excessive drainage to prepare the site for building work.(87) In spite of these disadvantages, the Byland community successfully established an ambitious system of water management. From the mid-twelfth century, when the monks were still residing at Stocking, work was begun. Ditches were built to drain the marshland, and the watercourse was extensively altered to provide a water supply. This involved diverting almost every beck to drain westwards, towards the Irish Sea, rather than eastwards, towards the North Sea. In fact, there is now scarcely a beck from Wildon to Thorpe Grange that runs in its natural channel.(88) The Headstream at Holbeck was used to supply a chain of eight small ponds to the west of the abbey precinct. These were probably used as hatcheries and stretched almost to the monks’ site at Stocking. Each of these ponds had a small, dam, and several of these survive. The valley to the north of the precinct was flooded, and some of the overflow was used to fill the cistern and to flush the drains. Two ponds to the south and west of the precinct were created near to the mills. The earlier of the two, which was created in the twelfth century, received the outfall from the sewers and powered the cornmill; it was later used to supply the cloth fulling mill and a second, smaller, mill was built to the west to serve the cornmill. These mill ponds could also contain fish and were therefore multi-functional.

[Read more about
fish-farming at Byland]

The monks also constructed larger fish ponds near the abbey precinct. The first was at Kilburn, and when the community lost the right to this in the late twelfth century, the monks began to create a new pond at Cams Head. This was stocked with bream from the royal pond at Foss in 1245.