The Corpus of ROMANESQUE SCULPTURE in Britain & Ireland
St Mary of Roche (medieval)
Cistercian House, former
The abbey is sited on the Maltby beck about two miles S of Maltby off the A634. The valley is steep-sided and narrow, but at Roche it widens out, allowing the church to be positioned close to the exposed rock on its N side and for the monastic buildings to spread across the flat land around the beck, bridging it in the characteristic fashion as at Fountains and Kirkstall abbeys.
Roche abbey was built to the standard Cistercian plan of the 12thc in local Lower Magnesian limestone (Harman and Pevsner 2017, with plan). The foundations of the abbey buildings are all clear to see, but the only substantial standing remains of our period are the arcades of the transept chapels and the return walls of the presbytery of the abbey church. These walls stand almost to their full height and are of national interest as they have early Gothic structural features that appear to date from 1170-85, in combination with Romanesque waterleaf capitals. The walls are also the earliest attempt by the Cistercian order at a three-storey elevation with rib vaults (Fergusson, p.12).
According to Fergusson’s plans (1990), all buildings of the abbey to the N of the Maltby Beck were built in the period 1170-80, apart from the (liturgical) east end of the chapter house and the screen across the nave, which are dated to the period 1181-1213. The recent guide (Fergusson and Harrison 2013) shows three phases for work north of the beck: 1170-85, phases 1 and 2; 1180-1200.
The chief surviving sculptural remains of the church are in one minor doorway, bases of the W doorway, nave arcades and crossing piers; the transept arcades; several courses of the screen separating monks and lay brothers; the occasional capital, and the vaulting corbels for transepts and presbytery.
This report includes the remains of the monastic precinct: the inner gatehouse, as well as the bases of vaulting in the chapter-house, and the E and W ranges.