l^EESIDENT S ADDRESS. 17 



the remains of the castle, which are now a huge mass of ruin, 

 the party proceeded, passing East Witton, with its modern 

 church, and came to Jerveaux Abbey, a Cistercian foundation 

 (1156), beautiful in ruin, whose name Ger-, Jer-, Yer-, or 

 Ur-vaulx, Veaux, or Yaux, is derived from the Eiver TJre 

 flowing beneath its walls. Here "Wensleydale ends, the hills 

 subside into easy slopes, the valley opens into a wide area, 

 and on one side loses itself in the vale of York. The Eiver 

 lire, with its continuation the Ouse, is the most considerable 

 river in Yorkshire. Another point of interest is, that the 

 name of Yorkshire is derived from the Ure. The Saxons at 

 first called what is now Yorkshire Deira, the County of Deer. 

 Afterwards, they gave it the name of Eurewicscire, and the 

 city of York, Eurewic, evidently pointing to the root of the 

 Eure or Ure. Through the kindness of the noble owner of Jer- 

 veaux Abbey, the Earl of Aylesbury, the party were permitted 

 free access to the grounds, and were thus enabled to form an 

 idea of the grandeur and the magnitude of the structure when 

 it had been in habitation. Gerveaux Abbey, says Leland, Aka- 

 rius Eitz Eardolph, in the time of King Stephen, gave to Peter 

 De Quin Crano, a monk, and to other monks of Savigny, certain 

 lands at Eors and Worton, in "Wensleydale, being part of his 

 possession, where, in 1145, they began to lay foundations of a 

 monastery of their order, Cistertians. What little remained of 

 this structure had become overgrown with rough weeds and 

 briars, and scarcely any trace of it, as a building, was seen, 

 except some few arches nearly level with the ground, when, in 

 1805, the late Earl of Aylesbury visited this place, and among 

 the great variety of improvements projected upon his estate, 

 was much pleased with an experiment that had been made by 

 his steward, in digging down to the bottom of one of the arches, 

 which proved to be the door of the Abbey church, and led to a 

 beautiful tessellated pavement and several tombs. His lordship 

 caused the whole of the ruins to be explored and cleared out, 

 which was done in the years 1806 and 1807, at a very considera- 

 ble expense, as the base of the building was buried several feet 

 deep below the surface, when the Abbey church and choir, two 



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