Vale Royal Abbey - Building The Abbey

Building The Abbey

King Edward had vast ambitions for Vale Royal. It was intended to be an abbey of the first importance, to surpass all the other houses of its order in Britain in scale and beauty and provide a fitting symbol of the wealth and power of the English monarchy and Edward's piety and personal greatness. The plans for the buildings reflected this. Royal masons under the leadership of Walter of Hereford, one of the foremost architects of his day, started work on a huge and elaborate high gothic church the size of a cathedral. It was to be 116m long and cruciform in shape with a central tower. The east end was semi-circular with a chevet of 13 radiating chapels, some square, some polygonal; each of the transepts also had a row of three chapels on its eastern side. South of the church stood a cloister, 42m square, surrounded by the domestic buildings of the house, which were to be of a scale and grandeur to match the church.

At first matters went well. The king greatly expanded the initial endowment and made large donations of cash and materials. for the work. Soon, however, things began to go seriously wrong. As the 1280s progressed the royal finance first got into arrears then dried up. King Edward needed money to pay for his numerous wars and workmen to build the great castles such as Harlech he put up to cement his conquest of Wales. He took not only the money had been set aside for Vale Royal but also conscripted the masons and other labourers to build his Welsh fortifications and in 1290 announced that he was no longer interested in the abbey and would have nothing more to do with it. The monks were left struggling to pay to complete the vast project and provide the running costs of it all by themselves, a task that would prove beyond their means, despite a substantial income and incurring huge debts to other church institutions, royal officials, the building contractors and even to the merchants of Lucca. Work stopped for at least a decade after 1290 and was resumed only on a much reduced scale thereafter. Nevertheless, by the 1330s the monks had managed to complete the east end of the church (the rest remained a shell) and sufficient of the cloister buildings to make the place habitable, though far from complete.

In the 1350s there was cause for renewed hope. Edward the Black Prince took an interest in completing the abbey and donated substantial funds to the job. Work began on completing the shell of the nave and making the east end even grander. However, in October 1360 disaster struck yet again. A hurricane swept across Cheshire and brought the arcades of the unfinished nave crashing down in ruins. This set the seal on things. It was subsequently agreed under the patronage of Richard II to finish the abbey on a much reduced scale from what was originally planned.