Sir George Hastings’ representative sold the lands to Sir Henry Willoughby of Risley who died in 1605, leaving four daughters: the eldest died without issue; the second married first Sir Thomas Aston, second the Hon. Anchitell Gray, second son of the Earl of Stamford who gave the chalice, Bible and Prayer Book to the church in 1701; the third married first Sir John Bellingham, Bart., second George Purefoy, Esq.; the fourth married Sir Simonds D’Ewes, Bart..
Anchitell Gray lived at Risley Hall, and his chaplain was one of those who performed marriages and other services in Dale church, which was without any proper minister until 1702, when it was united with Stanton. Gray sold his moiety to Philip, Earl of Chesterfield in 1716 for his son Alexander, father of the first Earl Stanhope. The other moiety was bought by Earl Stanhope in 1778.from the Earl of Stamford and remained the property of Lord Stanhope until it was sold to Stanton and Staveley. The site was scheduled as an ancient monument in 1932 and is now in private ownership.

The abbey site became a quarry for people wanting dressed stone, and examples of abbey stonework can be easily found in old buildings and walls in this area. Sir Henry Willoughby built Risley Hall and the wall round it from Dale Abbey stone. The Jacobean cottages in Stanton have 16 mason's marks on them, as have stones in a lock on the Erewash canal, and St Bartholomew's church, Elvaston. The abbey’s south range was largely demolished in the mid- or late- seventeenth century, curiously leaving the kitchen chimney which still forms part of Abbey House. In 1662 Elias Ashmole recorded a monumental inscription in the Chapter House.

A sketch of the site drawn by Stukeley in 1710, which has been described as rough and inaccurate, and a plan dated 23rd Sep. 1730, show the basic shape of the cloister and its surrounding buildings (or what was left of them) but omit the western range with its windows, fireplaces and internal divisions. They also omit the tracery of the clerestory window which is shown in Buck’s sketch of 1727. Buck's sketch, which is in the Bodleian Library, dated 26th June 1727, shows the south wall of the nave and the buildings round the cloister (kitchen, hall entire, cellars under it, abbot's parlour at the end of the hall) still standing, ceilinged in oak. It also shows a two-arched gatehouse spanning the roadway. A contemporary writer described: "The walls of the cloister, the kitchen, the hall entire, and under it the cellars, at the end of the hall the abbot's parlour, all the ceilings, well wainscotted with oak.... and a magnificent gatehouse just dropping."