Percy granted additional lands in the local area for the maintenance of the brethren at Dudland in Gisburn and Ellenthorpe in Paythorne, also confirming gifts from a tenant at Rimington and his steward at Ilkley.

[4][5] Percy had funded the construction of several wooden buildings, and Abbot Benedict along with twelve monks and ten conversi relocated from Newminster, with the abbey officially opening on 6 January 1147–8.

Permission to build a fishpond and a mill were confirmed in 1154 by Roger de Pont L'Évêque, Archbishop of York and King Stephen.

The monks here complained that they had both lost some of their income and that the cost of food and building materials had increased in the face of the extra demand.

Even the hope that Whalley would develop a large tannery had caused the local sellers of tree bark to rise their prices to such an extent that Sawley's tanning operation was nearly destroyed.

[6] In September 1306, Archbishop William Greenfield excommunicated the abbot, John de Houeden, along with most of the senior monks and they were not absolved for seven years.

The abbot from 1224 to 1233, Stephen of Sawley, was a well respected spiritual writer, and William de Remmyngton went on to become Chancellor of the University of Oxford in 1372–3.

As a wave of uprisings spread across the country that would become known as the Pilgrimage of Grace, on 12 October, supported by the rebels, the monks returned to the empty abbey.

The period of relative calm that followed was broken by Bigod's rebellion in January 1537, and it soon became clear that any hope of saving the abbey was lost.

[6] It is possible that Bolton was executed and the addition of William Trafford to the list of abbots was an error made by John Stevens in the early 18th century and uncritically repeated by some authors ever since.

[10] Sirs Thomas Percy and Stephen Hamerton, Nicholas Tempest, and Robert Aske were among those tried in London and sent to the gallows at Tyburn in late May and early June.

It passed through several generations of the Greville family, until in 1753, when Fulke Grenville sold Sawley to William Weddell of Newby Hall.

Earl de Grey had much of the site cleared under the direction of John R Walbran, assisted by local unemployed men.

[5][3] At the roadside 100 metres (330 ft) north of the church is an archway containing a considerable quantity of decorated medieval stonework.

[2] The entire abbey site was in an enclosed religious precinct covering 16.2 hectares (40 acres) and surrounded by a ditch and earthen bank, possibly topped with a stone wall.

On the northern side the is an exterior doorway and on the southern an entrance to the night stairs, which provided access from the monks' quarters.

The original nave measured approximately 40 metres (130 ft) in length and a narrow chapel was added along its north side in the 14th century.

The warming house had a fireplace against the west wall and an external yard adjoining it to the south possibly used as a firewood store.

[3] The west range was originally housed the lay-brothers and included their sleeping quarters, dining hall and cellars, but was latterly partly converted into the abbot's lodgings.

Both manuscripts were acquired by Archbishop Matthew Parker and either gifted to the University Library in 1574, or bequeathed to Corpus Christi College after his death in 1575.