Robinson's Guide to Richmond (1833)

RICHMOND:

Egglestone Abbey

A little to the west of Rokeby, are the ruins of EGGLESTONE ABBEY a small monastic house, inhabited formerly by Praemonstratensian Canons. The date of its foundation is uncertain, but the lancet shape of some of the windows, carries the erection of the existing building as far back as the middle of the thirteenth century, and it is said to have been founded by one of the Multon family, in the reign of Henry II. The church, is in a very ruinous condition, but some of the domestic offices have been fitted up as cottages, and are now inhabited. At the foot of the eminence on which the ruins stand, is the boisterous stream, the noise of which will have attracted the stranger's attention.

     "Where Tees, full many a fathom low,     Wears with his rage no common foe
      For pebbly bank, nor sand-bed here, 
      For clay mound checks his fierce career, 
      Condemned to mine a channelled way, 
      O'er solid sheets of marble grey."

This marble is the material of the font in Richmond church, above noticed, and also of the font at Barnard Castle.

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