By 1789 only the east window was left. It was mentioned by John Byng in Torrington Diaries 1789 and Pilkington in View of Derbyshire 1789. The latter said that some offices were still standing, converted to dwelling houses. The Premonstratensian Order’s records of this time say ‘pars monasterii habitabantur’ and in some windows there was painted glass with inscriptions. In 1830 some buildings were converted into houses and barns, some with painted glass with inscriptions.

73 lines of John Edwards’ poem All Saints Church, Derby (1805) talk of the ruin and there is an engraving of the arch at the beginning of the 19th century; an inferior version of the engraving is on the title-page of the 3rd volume of Britton and Brayley’s Beauties of England and Wales 1802. Another view taken in 1806 is in G. J. Parkyns’ Monastic and Baronial Remains (1816) volume II. William and Mary Howitt’s Forest Minstrel 1823 has ‘A legend of Dale Abbey’. Dr Hall in Days in Derbyshire (1863), p. 258 quotes three verses about Dale by Richard Howitt, and has a third sketch of the arch signed J. Gresley. Notts and Derby Notes and Queries (1892) has a poem ‘Dale abbey’ by Mr T.L. Tudor.

There is a tradition that the parish is exempt from diocesan tithes while the arch is still standing, so a portion of the highway rate was used to restore it between 1840 and 50. Freedom from tithes is actually a result of the extra-parochial character of Dale, but in the summer of 2011 Stanton by Dale Churchwarden Ralph Homer said he had been reading letters from the last Earl Stanhope, one of which gave permission to remove stone from the site, but not to touch the arch because his mother liked it.  

This Earl Stanhope had intended to build a museum, but the present building was not erected until the major excavation by Sir William St John Hope which started on 9th September 1878 and lasted two months; more work was done in 1879. The consent of the tenant of the abbey field, William Malin junior, had been obtained. Hope appears to have been inspired by finding Stukeley’s ground plan sketch of 1730. He began on the south side of the west face of the ‘arch’, and cleared the greater part of the church and some of the conventual buildings (the sacristy, vestry, chapter house, slype and part of the warming house) in seven weeks, laying bare the foundation walls. As well as tiles, he found two abbey tokens, a large and very rusty key, bronze corner clasps and one of the bosses of a book cover, a large brass lamp ring, an old razor and various bits of ornamental pottery.

The work in 1879 began on 2nd July and ended in the first week of August. The site of the nave and aisle were cleared; the west wall of the transepts was followed up, and parts of the warming house and cloister were cleared. The slype and the west end of the chapter house had been cleared in the spring. Hope found parts of the tile paving of the cloister alley at two different levels, the drain and the fireplace of the warming house, two processional doors into the nave, much of the nave pavement in situ, and many finely carved and moulded stones. The whole area was drained and levelled. Trueman’s history of Ilkeston exults: ‘a west