| Summary : Grange of Rievaulx Abbey, the date of its foundation is unknown, but it is thought it may date to the early 12th century. Visible as earthworks and building foundations. The grange was also mapped as part of the North York Moors National Park NMP project, visible as earthworks on air photographs. The features comprise buildings, building platforms, banks, platforms, hollow ways, hollows, embanked field boundaries and a possible well of medieval date. In addition, there are lynchets, hollow ways and further embanked and ditched field boundaries of possible medieval or post medieval date. A leat and dam (UID 1531265) as well as an embanked and ditched boundary (UID 57035) located to the north of the grange appear to have been associated. A further ditch of some 800m in length and located to the immediate west of Newlass may be a Bronze Age/ Iron Age cross ridge dyke but may also have been (re-)used as a leat associated with the grange (UID 1531443). Narrow post medieval ridge and furrow cultivation surrounds the grange (UID 1531493). The majority of the mapped features are extant on the latest 2009 vertical photography. |
More information : Earthworks at SE 582865, are the remains of Newlass, a grange of Rievaulx Abbey (SE 58 NE 6). They consist of well preserved banks and several building foundations, some 20 x 40ft. (see plan). In the Lay Subsidy of 1301, Newlathes - "the new barns", suggests a new foundation rather than a lost vill.
(1)
Not mentioned in the early documents of the Abbey it would seem to have been a demesne sheep farm in later years. In 1539 it comprised a dwelling house, a great sheep house, and outbuildings. There was also a small rabbit farm with house, warren and five acres of land, at Newlass.
(2)
Earthworks visible on air photographs centred at SE581866.
(3)
The earthworks at the site of the grange cover an area some 200.0m by 300.0m, but they are not as coherent as the plans by Pacitto and Hayes imply. There is a small complex of what are obviously building steadings in the NW corner; but the remainder consists of fragmentary banks and scarps which do not form any recoverable plan. A turf-covered mound with central depression at SE58188643 may represent the site of a kiln. Surveyed at 1:2500.
(4)
Newlass grange appears to be within the area of the foundation charter made to Rievaulx Abbey in 1131, but the name 'Newlathes' or 'Newlese' grange only appears in the Cartulary at the time of the Dissolution when the grange contained some 218 acres. The site is considered by Platt to be an association of grange and peasant settlement, and this view could be supported by the existence in 1538 of a common pasture of 60 acres called Hayeth, it being difficult to explain the purpose of common pasture within a purely monastic context.
(5)
SE 582 865. Newlass medieval site. Scheduled no. NY/1101.
(6)
The grange was also mapped as part of the North York Moors National Park NMP project, visible as earthworks on air photographs and centred at SE 5813 8664. The features comprise buildings, building platforms, banks, platforms, hollow ways, hollows, embanked field boundaries and a possible well of medieval date. In addition, there are lynchets, hollow ways and further embanked and ditched field boundaries of possible medieval or post medieval date. A leat and dam (UID 1531265) as well as an embanked and ditched boundary (UID 57035) located to the north of the grange appear to have been associated. A further ditch of some 800m in length and located to the immediate west of Newlass may be a Bronze Age/ Iron Age cross ridge dyke but may also have been (re-)used as a leat associated with the grange (UID 1531443). Narrow post medieval ridge and furrow cultivation surrounds the grange (UID 1531493). The majority of the mapped features are extant on the latest 2009 vertical photography.
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