©Terry Richardson 2013

Location: Immediately east of B4347 road in the village of Abbeydore. Parking along the road.

Grid reference: SO 387304 Postcode: HR2 0AA
Guidebook available.

• Dore Abbey stands in a beautiful part of Herefordshire's Golden Valley.
• The present Church was once the chancel, crossing and transepts of the medieval Cistercian monastery whose domestic buildings and chapter house can still be traced.
• The cloister garden is a lovely place to sit to enjoy the tranquillity of the site.
• The white robed monks first came here in 1147 and their skill in gardening is commemorated in the stylised foliage of the capitals, which would originally have been painted.
• By the 13th–14th centuries the wool from Dore's sheep was the best quality in Europe, fetching the highest prices and selling as far away as Italy. It was used as a template of quality for other wool clips.
• The profit paid for the Church to be enlarged, decorated and re–painted.
• Blanche Parry's father was the Steward who administered the abbey's business in the 15th century. Her great–grandfather had been the first Steward and her step–father was the last Steward.
• Blanche's family were interconnected with all the local gentry families of the March and these included her cousins, the Cecil / Sitsylt family of Sir William Cecil, Lord Burghley. Gerald Sitsilt was buried in Dore Abbey in the 13th century and his son, Owen, was a monk here. Baldwin Sitsylt was a benefactor, giving lands and liberties to Dore, while Thomas Sitsylt (Burghley's great–great–great–grandfather) cancelled a considerable debt owed to him by the monks. [See: Walterstone Church]
• See: King John & Dore Abbey for Abbot Adam's difficulties with the king.
• After the Dissolution of the Monasteries by King Henry VIII, the building was saved from total destruction by sympathetic king's commissioners. They allowed the bosses to be carefully removed from the medieval ceiling, for falling that distance would have destroyed them.
• The Church was restored in the 1630s by John, Viscount Scudamore. It is a rare, surviving example of a Laudian Church and the first where evidence for painted wood carving, here on the Screen and Gallery, have been found. The benches, other furniture and artefacts have also survived [see: Dore Archive].
• Scudamore's restoration also reinstated the original medieval altar top, or mensa.
• The words of the wall texts, dating from the 1630s and later 1700–1710, show what took place in different parts of the Abbey at that time.
• Fragments of medieval stained–glass can be seen. The later east end windows are newly restored.
• The six bells were originally cast in 1710/1712 by the first Abraham Rudhall at his Gloucester foundry. Four were recast: the treble by Thomas Rudhall in 1770, the tenor by Charles and John Rudhall in 1782, the fourth by Thomas Rudhall in 1810, and the second by Llewellins and James in Bristol in 1892.
• See Dore Abbey Archive for more points of interest and an interesting introduction to the site. More information can be found in the attractive, illustrated guidebook on sale in the Abbey.
• See also: 'A Definitive History of Dore Abbey' edited by Ron Shoesmith and Ruth E. Richardson, which has wide appeal because 15 contributors cover all aspects of the Abbey in this readable and interesting book – to buy a copy contact www.doreabbey.org.uk