Rosedale Abbey, The Green c.1955

Photo ref: R245010

More about this scene

Equidistant between Pickering and Castleton is the historic village of Rosedale. The small Cistercian abbey housing 10 nuns was formed in 1158. A tower is the only remaining part of the abbey itself. It was dissolved in 1535, and remained mostly intact until 1850, when mining brought a demand for housing. Much of the abbey stone was used to build the cottages - so from then the village could rightly be called Rosedale Abbey. The present church of St Lawrence and St Mary stands on the site of the original abbey. The mining of ironstone brought prosperity to the village in the 19th century - it even had its own narrow gauge railway from 1861. Three years later the 200 miners produced 300,000 tons of iron ore. The railway, which finally closed in 1929, carried over 10 million tons in its lifetime. The huge engine-house chimney was not demolished until 1972.