abbeys downpatrick

Cistercians were brought from Furness in Lancashire to construct the monastic buildings, which were laid out according to the accustomed Cistercian ground-plan, with a church on the northern side of an open cloister garth and with community and domestic buildings enclosing the other three sides. Of these, only the choir with its graceful triple lancet windows in the east gable survives to anything like its original height, though the transepts with their rib-vaulted open twin chapels, and the b...