This was a perfectly good Abbey for 400 years until it was turned into a ruin during a royal spat with the Pope by king Henry VIII in 1538. This act of vindictive royal vandalism became known as the "dissolution of the monastries", a grand term to cover what was the wholesale destruction of early Christian architecture in England. Set in a secluded valley are the ruins of the 12th century Rievaulx Abbey in Yorkshire. Enjoy.