The greatest act of defiance had been resistance to King Henry the Eighth’s Dissolution of the abbeys and nunneries back in 1540. On splitting from the Catholic Church after Rome refused him a second marriage, Henry named himself Supreme Head of the Church of England and forbade Catholicism. And all other dissenting faiths. Abbeys like Kirkstall were plundered for their gold and land, and sold to wealthy families loyal to king and country. Many monasteries were torched in the Dissolution, but an anti-Royalist faction – ultimately defeated – defended Kirkstall Abbey from attack by the King’s men, preventing it from being razed to the ground.
Sant passed by the remains of the Abbey Guest House, used by Cistercian monks on their pilgrimages across what was once called Elmet and much later th
