Cistercian Plumbing

One of our step today was Sawley Abbey. It's in my book of Wild Ruins but easy to find, park and explore - it's also an English Heritage property. Sawley suffered significantly after the dissolution of the monasteries when its stone was raided for other local properties; today it's a shell of its former glory but no less interesting. One fascinating design features was for the monks reredorters (latrines) where the plumbing side of things was just as beautiful as other building features. This is the equivalent of a Cistercian 'flush'.

We had less success with visiting Dunham Massey, when we approached from the 'wrong' direction and couldn't get under the 2.7m bridge - J did some brilliant reversing to get us to where we could turn round. We were then too tight for time to go round the 'other' way, so headed off to have a cup of tea with one of J's university friends not too far away.

Heading for the Wirral tomorrow where there are several sites to capture, forming the main aim of this trip.