I love walking around the ruins of abbeys such as Rievaulx, Fountains and Jervaulx, they’re just so beautiful, and I like to imagine what they were like in their heyday, when they were vibrant and bustling communities of religious people, and were important to their local communities.

The Dissolution of the Monasteries had such an impact on England, on its landscape and on its people, and so I want to spend the next couple of Claire Chats talks exploring this topic. Today, I want to talk about the monasteries themselves, what they were like and how they played a role in daily life.