An important feature in the history of the site is the Mill Race. From the early years, the Abbey Mill Race was constructed to provide the monks with water to drive their corn mill. After the dissolution of the monasteries, the Abbey and its land was given to supporters of Henry VIII before eventually coming under the ownership of the Cardigan Estate. The site is one of the oldest most continually used industrial sites in the country, and the former owners of Kirkstall Forge would take pictures of their staff members who reached the impressive milestone of 40 years of service and present them with a medal.
The abbey buildings escaped the wholesale destruction and plunder that occurred elsewhere; most were left standing and used for agricultural purposes; this is perhaps why Kirkstall is now the most complete set of Cistercian ruins in Britain.
While the abbey is now embedded in the industrial quarter of Leeds and the site bisected by the A65 Kirkstall Road, during the Middle Ages - and up until the late eighteenth century - this was a secluded spot in a rural setting. In the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries the main thoroughfare to Leeds actually ran through the nave of the church. Kirkstall was founded by Henry de Lacy , baron of Pontefract, who was one of the leading landholders in the North.
Charity was also a central part of monastic life and monks would offer their medicinal knowledge to the local community where possible, assisting the old and poor of the community in their infirmary or dispensing medicinal herbs from their gardens to the needy.
All Cistercian monasteries were required to have a guest house so that visiting travellers or nobles could have a place to rest. In Kirkstall this can be seen as the ruins in the field in front of the abbey.
It was always set apart from the main body of the abbey so as not to disturb the activities of the monks but was always open to the weary traveller. There were two types of monk at Kirkstall Abbey. The Choir Monks who were literate, highly educated for their time and largely drawn from the gentry and nobility. They were the monks we are most familiar with, spending most of their lives either reading, copying manuscripts or in prayer.
Then there were the Lay Brothers. Both had to follow the same rules of poverty, chastity and devotion to God but the Lay Brothers were largely concerned with manual labour, working the vast agricultural lands owned by the Abbey as well as other menial tasks and only attended church once a day. Although this may seem like a rotten deal for the Lay Brothers its worth pointing out the attractiveness of their life compared to that of other peasants as they were guaranteed a place to live and a meal a day for life, something few outside the nobility could hope for.
Over the centuries Kirkstall Abbey grew larger and wealthier. Although there was a brief period of financial difficulty in the late s, they were bailed out by the descendent of their original benefactor Henry de Lacy and by the s they were one of the wealthiest landowners in all of West Yorkshire, owning farmlands all around the area including at Chapel Allerton, Headingley, Roundhay, Seacroft and even as far away as the Yorkshire Dales.
The monks at Kirkstall were particularly involved in the wool trade, one of the main industries of medieval Europe, and one of the reasons Leeds would become a starting point for the Industrial Revolution and textiles industry in particular was the connection of the city to the wool trade established by Kirkstall Abbey Leeds being the nearest market for its goods.
Most of these lands were acquired as gifts from nobles who sought to guarantee their place in Heaven with a gift to the church.
Over time however the monasteries all over Europe began to decline as society changed. As more economic opportunities opened up the attractiveness of becoming a monk began to diminish and monasteries began shrink with some having barley a handful of brothers where once were hundreds.
In Parliament, at the behest of the King, passed the Act of Supremacy. A second reason was more mercenary, although many were but shells of their former selves, the monasteries still owned vast estates across the land and had vast wealth and riches stored within. The monks subsequently went their separate ways and, because they had surrendered peacefully, received modest pensions from the state. Abbot John was gifted the old gatehouse of the abbey to turn into his private home, now the Abbey House Museum.
In order to ensure the abbey could not be used as a place of worship, the king had the old Leeds Road now Kirkstall Road rerouted through the centre of the church, removing its front doors and demolishing the back wall. If you visit the abbey you will notice there are scraping marks up and down the columns of the church caused by wagons travelling through the ruined abbey into Leeds in subsequent centuries. However it returned to the crown when Cranmer was executed by the Catholic Queen Mary I in as part of her short lived attempt to restore Catholicism in England.
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