The Church
Constructed between 1152 and the late 1160s, the abbey church of Kirkstall is one of the most complete and perfect examples of early Cistercian architecture to be seen in this country, much of its original fabric surviving intact, except for a few minor alterations carried out during the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries.
At the western end, the most important entrance to the church is housed within a fine porch, its wide round headed doorway being enriched with a series of five receding arches mounted on detached columns with scalloped capitals. The wall above was completely re-modelled in the late fifteenth century, when the original large circular window was replaced by a pair of tall arched windows filled with fine tracery, and the gable was rebuilt to accommodate a new lead covered roof of shallow pitch. At the same time, battlements were added to the walls around the eaves and gables of the church, each corner being surmounted by a square hollow turret two storeys in height decorated with both elaborate tracery and crocketed gables.
Looking through the west door, the whole length of the church can now be seen, but in early monastic times this great open space was split up into a number of separate units. Between the great columns down each side of the church tall screens were erected to leave the narrow side aisles as passages for communication, while further screens passed across the church between the fourth pair of columns to form the nave (2) for the services of the lay brothers and lay visitors. The fifth bay was occupied by a pair of chapels, while the sixth formed the retro choir for the aged and infirm monks, including those who had recently undergone blood letting in the Infirmary. Between the sixth pair of columns a high stone built screen or pulpitum cut across the church, this being surmounted by a gallery from which the epistle and the gospel were sung on festival days. The area beyond the pulpitum, extending under the tower, was used as the choir of the monks and novices (3), its west end and sides being fitted with wooden stalls similar to those of a cathedral.
To each side of the tower lie the transepts which give the church its symbolic cross shaped plan. That to the north (4) has a narrow doorway to give access to the cemetery for funerals, while the south transept (6) houses the night stairs by which the monks processed directly from their dormitory down into the choir to celebrate their vigilae or night offices. The eastern walls of both transepts are provided with three identical chapels for private prayers and masses, each originally having a round headed cupboard or credence table where the chalice, the bread and the wine were prepared, and also a small sink or piscina where the sacramental vessels were washed after use.
Beyond the tower, beneath the great vaulted roof, lies the Presbytery (5), the most important part of the whole church, for here stood the high altar where the mass was continuously celebrated for almost four hundred years. An early thirteenth century manuscript records the religious fervour of Abbot Turgisius who officiated at this altar 'never without tears, and so great was the flood of them that he seemed less to weep than to pour them down like rain, so much so that hardly could anyone else have used the priestly vestments in which he was robed in offering the mass'.
The altar stone was broken up in the eighteenth century by three local men, all of whom died shortly afterwards in tragic circumstances. Other fittings still remain within the presbytery, however, these including a credence table, a piscina, and a large arched recess for the sedilia or bench used by the officiating priests.
Passing around the end of the west front to the north side of the church, the remains of the foundations of a long rectangular building project through the grass (1). This building was the outer porch or galilee where travellers or other lay people gathered before entering the nave through the north door. The doorway itself, framed by the scars of the former galilee walls, has an arched head of rounded and zig zag mouldings, the whole design being enclosed by a further moulding having a remarkable bold embattled outline. The north aisle still retains all its original windows, except for one in the sixth bay which was greatly enlarged in order to provide more light into the retro choir and the area around the pulpitum during the fifteenth century.
The North Transept is similarly complete, although its gable was rebuilt to a lower pitch with battlements and turrets when the new lead roofs were installed during the same period. Around the corner, the enlarged fourteenth and fifteenth century windows of the chapels can be seen, the corbel table above having small arched blocks springing from corbel to corbel, a distinctive feature also found on the mid twelfth century church of Adel in north Leeds. From this point, it is best to walk away from the church in order to obtain a clear overall view of the cast end of the Presbytery, When this front was first built, it was pierced by a row of three arched windows above which a huge round window was arranged between four sunken circular panels.
All these features were removed in the fifteenth century when the present window was inserted, and the gable and turrets rebuilt, but it is still possible to identify the remains of the circular panels between the top of the window opening and the adjacent buttresses. The present wall and sill beneath the window are both quite modern, for, as an eighteenth century visitor remarked 'The great window of the High Altar is not only a wide space, but the very walls underneath that once supported its comely stanchells is quite taken away. This makes it as a great but solitary passage through the whole Body of the Abbey, and so, thro' the West Door of the Church, an easier Way to some of the neighbouring villages'. In fact, the main road along the valley continued to run through the church until 1827 when the present road was built just to the north.