Kirkstall Arbey

Maguificent in its decay and a strstty alike iu its ruass and its details, KirKstall abbey waa founded for the Cistercian order by Henry de Laci in 1139. lts fouuder had the rare felicity of seeing the work ooinpleted. With his own hands he began the ediflce, and ha gave unstinted aid in its construction and in the promotion of its religious work, and he did not rest content uutil he saw on the meadow land selected for the purpose a thoroughly well organized monastic establishment. The abbey proper, as seen today, is but one out of a series of buildings erected as a compact and interworking whola It was the opinión of Sir Gilbert Scott that all the essential features of the combined structure - the church, tho chapter house, the cloisters, the refeotory, the dormitory and other buildings, whose foundations at least ruay still be traced, were the work of one and the same period and the same men - atruck, as it were, "f rom a single die." Of no other important ecclesiastical edifice of the Norman or early English period can as much be said. The abbey became the mausoleum of its founder. In it he and his son were given sepultare. For nearly f our centuries the work of the abbey was conducted with more or less influence. Some of its heads rnade their power feit in parliament, aud the line of their succession had run to the twenty-ninth abbot when the dissolution changed the character and fortunes of the place. The monastery and the estáte arouhd it were then granted by Henry VIII to Archbishop Cranmer and his . heirs in exchange for other possessions. The grant was conflrmed by Edward VI, but in Elizabeth's time the property had in some way reverted back to the crown. It next passed to private owners and was secured eventually by the Savilles of Howley Hall, from whom it ■was transferred by marriage to the Cardigans. In the hands of the Cardigans it remained until 1889, wheu "She unexpected'' happened, and the abbey, with its grounds, was purchased by Colonel J. T. North at the price of about $55,000, and by him handed over as a gift to Leeds, his native town. Kirkstall abbey is about three miles from Briggate and