Fountains Abbey - nr Ripon, North Yorkshire

Fountains Abbey located near Ripon in North Yorkshire is one of the finest examples of a Benedictine monastery in the country which was later to become a Cistercian brotherhood. Founded in 1132 by thirteen Benedictine monks following a riot at St Mary's Abbey in York, Fountains Abbey quickly established itself and gained great wealth and power and by the 1200s was one of the richest abbeys in the country. This wealth was achieved by the integration of lay brothers by the monks at Fountains Abbey who carried out most of the sheep farming over thousands of acres (one of the main incomes of the abbey) and maintained the abbey's longevity until the dissolution of the monasteries by Henry VII in 1539.

After this time, the Fountains Abbey estate changed hands several times most notably to William Aislabie, who created the beautiful water gardens that visitors walk through on their way to the abbey from Studley Royal . Today Fountains Abbey is owned by The National Trust and is one of their flagship properties after taking ownership from North Yorkshire County Council in 1983.

Today if you want to visit you can either enter from the Fountains Abbey side or through Studley Roger, although there is now an information centre and larger car parking available at Fountains Abbey, and this tends to be the preferred choice.

The walk through the water gardens is extremely enjoyable no matter what time of year and very picturesque and not too demanding for children either. As with most National Trust properties, the refreshments are excellent and I can recommend the home-made cream teas at the Studley Royal Lakeside tea rooms to anyone.

This entry was posted on Thursday April 24th, 2008 at 2:39 PM and is filed under Places to Visit. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response.

Leave a Reply

Name (required)
Mail (required - will not be published)
Website


Security Code