In 1128 a small group of Cistercian monks arrived from France and founded the first monastery of this reforming religious order in England. Thus the Abbey of the Blessed Mary of Waverley became the springboard for Cistercian settlement in Britain. Renowned for the quality of their architecture, the Cistercians built some of the finest abbeys in the country, among them Tintern, Rievaulx, and Fountains Abbey.
With the Dissolution of the Monasteries in 1536, much of Waverley Abbey was dismantled for building stone and today very little remains to be seen.
Originally the Abbey did not feature in my alignments. Although an alignment passed through the site, it was not until I discovered where the layout of the main church was within the site that I realised the great accuracy of the line through the Monk’s choir in the centre of the building. The fact that the distance from this point to Whitmoor Barrow is precisely 14 Druid Miles appears coincidental.
