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Twelfth-century Cistercian legislation prohibited the construction of stone bell towers and also high wooden towers. Therefore, low wooden towers set in stone bases were often built in the crossing of the church. The twelfth-century church at Rievaulx had a bellcote set above the south transept. In the thirteenth century this was replaced by a tower which had a timber steeple. The tower fell at some point before the dissolution of the abbey when it, and the bell, lay in the south transept.

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