Tombs at Kirkstall

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1. The cemetery: in 1713 a stone coffin was found in the cemetery. This seems to have been a rather expensive coffin which suggests that it may have belonged to a person of note. As it was buried outside the abbey, and not within the church, it has been suggested that this was the coffin of a distinguished artisan and not a noble. The cover of the coffin is incomplete but all the bones have survived. There was an inscription but this was either lost or destroyed by workmen.(3)

2. The cloister
i. Part of a sepulchred slab, about six feet long, was recovered towards the centre of the cloister. This was inscribed with an incised cross and sword and the words ‘Iohes S’. It may have belonged to a fourteenth-century knight.
ii. Two tombs were discovered in the late eighteenth / early nineteenth century. It is not clear where exactly they were found or indeed where they are now. One of these belonged to one of the last monks of the abbey, but all that remained of the inscription was M(o) nachos hujus domus AD 1530 (Monk of this house, 1530 AD). The second of these tombs belonged to a ‘Richard’, but it is not known who he was or when he died.(4)
iii. In the eighteenth century the remains of a coffin made of iron, lead and stone was discovered. This contained a large skeleton. The lid of the coffin was made of encaustic tiles showing devices and letters.(5)

3. The chapter-house: in 1827 several boys who were exploring the chapter-house discovered an opening in the wall from which they removed the outer slab of a coffin. The bones and part of the skull found in the coffin belonged to an elderly person. No inscription was visible but the fact that it was in the chapter-house suggests that this was a person of standing. Other tombs can be seen incorporated in the walls of the eastern half of the chapter-house. This exceptional arrangement must date from the rebuilding of the room in the thirteenth century.

4. The gatehouse: an old stone coffin was found in the gatehouse and is now in the garden of the Abbey Museum. Along with some ‘mouldering bones and a large quantity of dust’ the coffin contained a silver spoon and a silver farthing of Edward IV (1461-70; 1471-83), which had been placed under the corpse’s head.(6)