 Hello, thank you for joining me. I'm out in the Stropshire countryside today. That, embankment there, that is the old Seven Valley Railway, the section of the line that closed from Bridge North up to Shrewsbury, but this video isn't actually about railways. It's about what's on the other side of this little embankment. We're going to a room in Dabby. The build was Abbey. It's an Abbey which I've visited a few times over the years and I'm pleased to be visiting here again. So we're going to go up these steps. So this is the old railway embankment and then we're going to look around the ruins. So we get to here and then this is where the railway part of this video ends. But this is looking, that's looking towards, well, just not far there was Iron Bridge Power Station and the rail would have continued all the way down eventually to Bridge North and then looking that way, the embankment sort of disappeared a bit but that would have gone to Shrewsbury. So once I'm on train we're running up and down here. We're going to go in here. You have to pay to park but it's actually free to enter the site. So here we are. We're now entering Bill was Abbey and as we walk around this corner, there's the Abbey. So it's quite an impressive distortion Abbey ruin. It was founded by Bishop Roger de Clinton in 1135 and the church was built between 1150 and 1190. There's a general overview of the site which we're going to look around. So we're there. So let's go and have a look around the church and some of the other Abbey buildings. So quite an impressive. The sun's very overexposed. Let's get inside. It shouldn't be too bad. A little bit of conservation work there as you can see is the fence around it. I do, as I always say, when I go to ruins, I try and find my way in through where there would have been doors but I can't actually see an obvious door. If you look down there and there, there's some tining which has survived which is quite nice to see. We now walk through here and this will take us in to the Abbey's church. There's the crossing. That's where the central tower would have been. That's looking up towards the castle. So this way is looking down the church. So north will be that way. That way is west and there's pretty much all Abbey churches do. They face east. So this is the best part of the Abbey. Very nice. The whole shell pretty much has survived. You can see all the arches. I came here when I was about five and then I came here about ten years ago. So I visited a few times this Abbey over the years and it's nice to be here. You did actually used to have to pay to go in now. It seems you just have to pay to park your car if you're not a member. I think a charity should remember. Let's go up here now. We'll have a look at the rest of the church and then we'll walk around. Out there are the cloisters. So we'll go down there and see what there is to see. So when we get towards the castle, that's the north-transit. That's the south-transit. Very sunny. Let's just go past here there. You can see it better than that. So that's the south-transit. We can't go in there as you can see. There's going to be some conservation work taking place. But I am standing in the central crossing. And yes, there we go. That's like I say. That is the north-transit. Interesting. There's some stairs up there. I suppose once there were stairs which would have taken us onto the roof of the chapter house. Which we're also not going to do, but we'll go and have a look at that quite soon. That must be where we put the camera through the fence. Just so you can have a look at where the monks possibly were sat. Bringing the camera back out. So here we are, down this end of the abbey. Then you get a nice view looking back down the nave. What we're going to do now, we're going to go and look around the parts of the abbey. We still have a roof on and you'll see why. Actually, there's a roof on these little chapels here. So the north-transit, as churches and caveats often do, had a couple of little chapels. Nice view out there into the abbey. Most of them are grand and this building would have been. It's the Cistercian abbey. So they are probably the most successful of the memastic orders. Originating from France, the Cistercian order. Out there, there's some gardens which we're not going to be able to go in there privately. That was the Abbots lodging and there's various gardens. I did want to have a look around there. I asked someone, someone took me around there about 10 years ago, but I don't think we're going to be doing that today. I'll just show you these stairs. We're not going up them, but up. So there must have been wooden stairs that have long gone. If you went up there, you'd be effectively upstairs on the floor above the chapter house and everything. So here we are on the north-transit looking down to the south-transit. I'm not sure there would have been much of a window here because you'd have had the upstairs, but there possibly would have been another grand window down there. Let's go down down these steps. Down here. It's starting to get a bit exciting now when we're going into these rooms. Always enjoy these parts of exploring ruins. Once again, we can see these gardens, which I said we're not going into the Abbots lodgings. So just around the corner there is the house. It's probably been rebuilt, everything, but basically the site of the Abbots lodgings. Got a bit of a vaulted ceiling in here. It's not the best one we're going to see. We're going to see much better quite soon once we get around. We're going to go out this door now, and this will take us into the cloisters. So this is the Abyss cloisters. Look around there. A nice shadow of the arches from the church. We're now going to go. This is one of the best parts, preserved parts of the Abbey here, the chapter house. Have a look before we go inside. We'll just stand here. You can see down, see the tiles on the floor, and there's also quite a fantastic vaulted ceiling. I'll give you an idea of what it would have been like on this board here. Abbott ran off. He was the head of the Abbott. Yeah, the Abbott is like the head of the monastery. They would have held meetings in here. It wasn't really held prayers in here, so it was more than non-religious. The finances and everything would have been held in a chapter house. Because if you go to any cathedral today, cathedrals will usually have a chapter house. It's quite an essential part of the bigger churches. It's just like saying it's not for prayers. Interesting, as I was saying about the vaulted ceiling, there are some quite nice carved stone in places. Look up there. And if you look on this column, it's got some quite well preserved stones. It's inside. It's better protected. Interestingly, we've got some stone carvings on that one. These two, this one and this column, don't have any stone carvings. But that one there does. We're going to have a closer look around here. So you've got some quite nice stone carvings there. We're now going to go back outside and we'll look at the cloisters. We'll go down to the other side of the abbey and we'll get a good view looking up. So here we are. This is now the cloisters of the abbey here. Get a great view of the church. There's one more little room to look inside. I think this is just a corridor between fresh parts of the abbey. Sometimes known as a slope. A slope is a word for a corridor. So there's actually quite a lot more ruins of the abbey in the private gardens, which we can't really see. Although if we have a look, I think you might be able to see this one, but you can sort of see through. But we won't actually be able to go in there. That's the abbey church. I can hear there's people in there. There's a lot of things going on in that part of the abbey. We're going to go down to this lower part now. The sun is so bright today. Very nice bright October day. If we have a look around here, you can see there's an orchard. If you look down there, you can just see there's a few more ruins. So the abbey would have continued down. Now I think things like the infirmary, those parts of the abbey, would have been down there. Quite an interesting lower. I think so there'd have been buildings above here. What we'll do, we'll go down there. I can remember as a child when I came here, when I was five, my sister and I were having races up and down there. I was always fascinated with monasteries, castles, et cetera, as a child. For me, being told we were going to a ruined abbey was quite a treat. It started when I was about three. And then went to Lantani Pryorina and eventually we came here. We also visited Wenlock Pryorina. We're not going to go there today. We've got someone out from going to this afternoon, somewhere completely different. But I remember, for me, visiting ruined abbeys always was a real treat. So I was very excited to come here, even as a five-year-old. Quite nice drawing there for the abbey. River Seven isn't too far away. Just down there. My finger down here now. Get a great view here of the whole abbey. So, go back to my visit when I was five. As I said, my sister and I were racing up and down here, which we were quite enjoying now. As I said, I enjoyed coming to these places. When I went back to school, I had to write. You know, when you were a child at school, you write your news, what you've done in the holidays. And I wanted to write that I'd been here, because this probably, when I was four, this and the Seven Valley Railway, they were two highlights of my holiday. And I said to the teacher, Miss, I need to write, I went to build. And she let me write the word build. And I said, now I want to write the word was. And she said, well, you can't write that. Because that doesn't make sense. I said, no, I want to write. She said, what do you want to write? I said, I want to write. I went to build was abbey. And she said, no, Henry, you're not going to write that. Because that doesn't make sense. I said, yes, it does. I went to build was abbey. I was age of five. I hadn't quite, I knew the word build. I knew the word was. I hadn't realized build was was one word. But she insisted I could not write it. She kept saying to me, what did you build? I said, I didn't build anything. I went to build was abbey. She said, that doesn't make sense. What did you build? I said, I didn't build anything. I went to an abbey that Henry, I ate for another Henry destroyed, but I didn't build anything. And I took a postcard in next day. I went home a bit upset. My mother said, well, take a postcard. I didn't show her. I didn't understand. And she sort of pretty much went. Yeah, that's nice. Right. Next thing. So she was a bit embarrassed. She obviously realized that I was right. And fire girl was right. And the qualified teacher was wrong. But yeah, build was abbey. It's a place. So if any teachers are watching this, if you get any little boys or girls, they want to write, they went to build was abbey. Let them write it because it is a real place. Anyway, let's go up. There's a board here. It shows you what the abbey would have looked like before it was ruined. And I think that's it for my visit today. It's been great to come here again. Great view now. The whole site. The abbey. Chapter house. This course is in the Cloisters. Here we are then. So a bit of a cutaway. Give you an idea. See the abbey. So that's the church. Give you an idea what the church would have been like. The Cloisters would have lots of plants. That's where the monks would have exercised. We were just down there a moment ago. That's the West Range. That's where we were. And as I said, that's the chapter house. Just there. So those steps would have gone up to what it would have been. Number six, with the East Range. So I think the monks would have slept up there. So you can just see above the chapter house just where there would have been some windows. So the monks I think would have probably slept up there. Anyway, I think that's it for today's video. Hope you enjoyed it. Thank you very much for watching. And if you're in Shropshire, there's plenty of other abbeys you can visit. We've got this one here at Bilbois. There's Wenlock Priory, which is literally up the road. You've got Hormund Abbey, Lillishul Abbey, White Lady's Priory. I probably could go on Shrewsbury Abbey, which of course isn't ruined. So I hope you enjoyed this video. And from Bilbois Abbey, thank you very much for watching. Please do feel free to like, subscribe and comment. Goodbye.