The Dissolution
.JPG)
On November 22nd, 1539, monastic activity at Kirkstall came to an abrupt end when the abbot, John Ripley, surrendered the abbey to the commissioners of Henry VIII. John Browne, the Prior, and thirty other monks were immediately granted pensions, while according to tradition, the abbot passed into retirement in the Gatehouse.
In 1542 the Abbey and its lands were granted to Thomas Cranmer, Archbishop of Canterbury, but reverted to the Crown in 1556 when he was burnt to death for his religious beliefs.
Following a sequence of complicated legal transactions, the abbey was purchased by Sir Robert Savile in 1583-4, and remained in his family until 1671, when it passed by marriage into the hands of the Brudenells, Earls of Cardigan.
Having been stripped of its roofs and windows, the abbey served as a quarry for local building works, including the stairs leading to the water's edge at Leeds Bridge. Fortunately all the major buildings survived intact, however, most of them being re-used for agricultural purposes.
The Chapter house, Chapels, and novices' room provided housing for a herd of cattle, the lay brothers' building became a barn, the Cloisters were planted as an orchard, and the gatehouse converted into a farmhouse. Grass, trees and ivy then began to engulf the ruins, giving them a particularly rich quality of pastoral and romantic beauty.