Customer letters and feedback
I am sending a little cheque to cover our fees for the visit we paid to Jervaulx Abbey yesterday – there were 28 of us. Thank you very much for seeing that we were well supplied with guides and postcards. I think several of us availed ourselves of the opportunity to buy them.
It was, as I had hoped, a beautiful evening and the ruins, always so evocative and atmospheric, were especially so for us. We greatly enjoyed our visit – the special interests we had found plenty of scope, and for those in the party for whom it was a first visit, the added quality of new acquaintance with a unique monument in the loveliest of settings. Thank you so much.
Yours sincerely
Stuart Lack
I should like to express on behalf of all who came to Jervaulx Abbey yesterday, our thanks for a very happy and pleasant occasion. Most of us had not visited the Abbey before, and were very impressed by what we saw, and the way the ruins were preserved without becoming artificial. It was a special pleasure to be able to use an altar dated from medieval times and still in place.
Some of us were able to talk with the gardener who was very knowledgeable, and all in all it was a very happy occasion.
With thanks
Yours sincerely
PF Johnson
Durham
How lovely to see a remains that isn’t all shaved lawns and re-pointed mortar.
This is a most enchanting spot.
Thank you very much for the privilege of seeing it.
London, SW1
My wife and I have recently completed a tour with our caravan, which took in Castle Howard, and the area around Helmsley with its lovely ruined abbeys, and then up to Northumberland and its castles, Warkworth, Dunstanburgh, Alnwick and Bamburgh, then over to Dryburgh and back across the border to Haltwistle and the Roman Wall and finally to Leyburn and so on Saturday October 11th , the most magical and lovely day of our tour, to Jervaulx Abbey and I wished to say how much we appreciated the kindness of yourself and your wife in allowing the public to see this peaceful and lovely gem, and especially for the trust you place in your visitors that they will pay their just dues without being asked.
Whilst one must give justified praise to the D & B?? for the excellent if somewhat clinical way they keep the buildings in their charge, Jervaulx won our hearts because wild flowers and/or weeds and ivy are allowed their place too.
We came to Jervaulx on the 26th September, in the morning, and I appear to have spent some time there since. Hence this note, which is as much an attempt to record my thoughts as to share the experience with whomsoever might read it.
Did they hire the watercolourist, just for that day, or had she been there a long time, barely perceptible in the shadows, an undetected feature in the prints of early photographers? Or was she that self portrait of the artist, endlessly repeated in the infinity of perspective? By such intangible considerations of memory and imagination does one at least come near to touching the spirit of place moving silently amongst the debris of history, an as sedate and inevitably predictable a progress as that of the cows in the adjacent green pastures converging towards their milking. Such ambience is rare as elusive to brush and camera as quicksilver to the touch, but as firmly imprinted on the mind as lichen on old stone.
I recall, some forty years ago, sleeping in the barn of an ancient stone farmhouse at St Jacques de Liseaux in France, and by day, under a hot August sun, lunching on white bread and red wine in the harvest field, listening to the monastery bells across the river. Were our abbeys so different? As peasants tilled the fields or tended cattle, did not the choir inspire those distant listeners with purity of its plainsong, did not such beauteous sound, all seasons round, rise up to the heavens and then from thence like manna fall?
Now, in the solitude of wilderness, the roofless ruins and empty lancet windows, the delicate scrollwork of dog rose illuminating the parchment of day above crumbling walls, the fallen broken columns, the stumps of graceful arches, the doorways to some other time, all serve as stencil for the sun to draw dark silhouettes and shadows, there, where effigies erode and lose identity and shape, and anonymous empty coffins will fill with rain.
Not far removed from here, a spring, the water source which served the monks their several needs, now disappear beneath the ground; the kitchen hearths and chimneys gape, the ovens yawn, the lavatories gone reveal the drains where turds in unison once fell and then like corks were bobbing swept away. Gone too the melting of the ice on Winter fires, and rime on the breath of Winter prayers.
By a monarch’s greed we can and do enjoy these gentle gardens, and walk down tranquil aisles of mossy stone. Here, silence has filled the spaces, the rasp of time has softly blurred each broken edge. The moonlit negative of night develops slowly in the sun, and water now runs clear.
Derek Barlow
Wargrave, Berks
Thank you for keeping the Abbey ruins as they are!!
Two visitors from Germany
Thank you to the generous owner of this most lovely place for having opened it to the public without any mercenary motives. We have spent her charming hour.
Four visitors from Germany
We should have enjoyed our visit to the Abbey ruins much more had there been some obtrusive labels stating what the various rooms were. (Incidentally we did buy one of your brochures).
Otherwise I would like to compliment you on the tidiness of your lawns and for leaving the flowers for people to enjoy.
Yours faithfully
Marion Travis
Ashton-under-Lyme
I am an ordinand of the Episcopal Church in the United States, currently studying at St John’s Theological College in Nottingham. Last week, my wife and I visited the ruins of Jervaulx, and we were both so impressed, with not only the site itself but with the fact that it is so beautifully maintained – indeed pristinely maintained – that I wanted to personally express my thanks to the owners.
What made perhaps the deepest impression was the fact that the Abbey remains in private hands, and does not have the very ‘civil’ or overly ‘public’ atmosphere that characterizes so many other monuments in this country. Nottingham’s Council, for example, owns Newstead Abbey nearby, which is essentially a great heritage in itself – but the municipal character of the place today is unmistakeably, and honestly jarring. At any rate, please know that Jervaulx made a profound impression on at least two visitors, and that the serenity of the place is profound and unique.
Yours sincerely
Paul F M Zahl
In the Spring I brought a party of member of the Richard III Society to Yorkshire for a three day visit.
The highlight was to be Middleham and on the way we decided to visit Jervaulx Abbey. The difficulty then was to leave it to continue our journey.
Many of us were seeing Jervaulx for the first time and I am sure we will never forget its beauty. One gets so used to the almost ‘clinical’ care of most Abbeys and Castles but Jervaulx stands alone.
We were very grateful to the Custodian for his help and kindness. He handled our large group with patience and courtesy.
I have enclosed a copy of our magazine ‘The Ricardian” as I thought you might be interested in the account of our visit on page four of the Bulletin.
Yours sincerely
Phyllis Hester
Upminster, Essex
I enclose a few photos that I snapped at your Abbey last month. I always develop my prints with cheap and cheerful Bonus Print – who send me doubles! I thought you might like these extras.
I visit Yorkshire with my wife for a few days at the end of May. The landscape and countryside is stunning. Of all the picturesque ruins my favourite was your Abbey! It has great nooks and crannies and a very relaxing atmosphere.
Yours faithfully
Michael Jones