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Egglestone Abbey is an abandoned Premonstratensian Abbey on the eastern bank of the River Tees, 1? miles (2.5km) south-east of Barnard Castle in County Durham. Historically part of the North Riding of Yorkshire.

The Abbey was founded in the late 12th century at some point between 1168 and 1198. The founders were the Premonstratensians who wore a white habit and became known as the White Canons. They followed a code of austerity similar to that of Cistercian monks, unlike monks of other orders, they were exempt from the strict Episcopal discipline. They undertook preaching and pastoral work in the region (such as distributing meat and drink). The site for the abbey was chosen because of its isolation, close proximity to a river and the supply of local stone for its construction. In common with many of the early monasteries, the original church at Egglestone Abbey was enlarged, and partly rebuilt, about one hundred years later, it is this later church that survives today.

The abbey was always poor and at times had difficulty maintaining the required number of canons (twelve - from the twelve Apostles). Egglestone Abbey was to suffer at the hands of Scottish invaders and the rowdy English army who were billeted there in 1346 on their way to the Battle of Neville's Cross. The Abbey was dissolved in 1540 by king Henry VIII, the lands were granted to Robert Strelly in 1548, who converted some of the buildings into a great private house that was abandoned in the mid-19th century. Eventually, much of the abbey was pulled down and some of the stonework was used to pave the stable yard at the nearby Rokeby Hall in the 19th century. Portions of the walls of the church remain today, and within the walls are a number of tombestones, one bearing the inscription "T. Rokeby, Bastarde. Jesu for Thy passions sair, Have mercy on thy sinful heir."
MATERIALS: Squared stone and rubble.
PLAN: cruciform church, aisleless except for eastern chapels to transepts; cloister on north extending west from church; east range with chapterhouse, dorter on 1st floor and rere-dorter; north range with frater over undercroft with warming house; west range with kitchen (perhaps post-Dissolution) and perhaps guest house. Church in Transitional, Early English and Decorated styles.
Nave has chamfered plinth, pilaster buttresses on north and west, and a moulded cornice on corbels below a C15 heightening. At west end a blocked doorway, with a late C13 2-light window, replacing a pair of earlier lancets. North wall has a round-arched chamfered doorway, moulded corbels and a string-course marking the position of the cloister roof, and 2 lancets. 4-bay south wall has sill string and stepped buttresses; moulded doorway in west bay; windows of 3 lancet lights under one arch with pierced spandrels, multi-hollow-chamfered surrounds and hoodmoulds.
Only the west wall of the south transept stands, with moulded plinth and angle buttresses with gabled crocketed heads at the south-west corner; two late C13 2-light windows and a C15 stair turret.
The chancel has a chamfered plinth and stepped buttresses, the eastern moulded. Two 2-light windows on south; 2- and 3-light on north: lancet lights, under pointed arches, have jamb shafts with nail-head capitals. 5-light east window has similar surround but with straight moulded mullions. South and east windows have richer mouldings.
INTERIOR: South-west corner of crossing shows shafted responds to crossing arches, set on corbels. Piscinae and aumbries in south and east walls of chancel. Monuments include table tomb with arcaded sides to Sir Ralph Bowes, d.1482, inscribed slab to 'T. Rokeby, Bastarde': relief cross fleury with crozier,and brass indents.
East range of cloister 3 storeys: largely mid-C16 with 2-, 3- and 4-light mullioned windows, those to ground floor with heraldic or head hoodmould stops. Interior: C16 lst-floor fireplace with flat-pointed head; the north end the C13 groin-vaulted rere-dorter undercroft with a segmental-arched fireplace. North range shows remains of warming house fireplace, and a large C16 stepped stack to north. The other domestic buildings are reduced to footings and lower courses (except for a length of wall with 2 doorways on south side of cloisters).

During November 2000 English Heritage carried out an archaeological field investigation and survey of the area around Egglestone Abbey. Low earthworks immediately beyond the abbey ruins to the west comprise small enclosures (at least one may be the remains of a former building abutting the cloister). A linear hollow skirts the north-west corner of the abbey aligned NE-SW (likely to be the remains of the channel which carried water to the rere-dorter drain) and a hollow-way leading to the valley floor of Thorsgill Beck. The remains of at least three enclosures are visible in the field immediately south of the abbey. These may be the remains of garden compartments belonging to the post-Dissolution house or paddocks and allot

I like to relax sometimes with a few set up still life pictures .

This set-up was taken at home on the kitchen table with a black background cloth and a few polystyrene spheres which I found around the house and lit with a diffused anglepoise light.