Fountains Abbey
- UNESCO World Heritage
Interesting facts
- In 1146 an angry mob, furious at Abbot Henry Murdac's opposition to a new Archbishop of York, burned down almost everything except the church.
- During the famine of 1194 the monks fed, sheltered and nursed local people for six months.
- In the 15th century Abbot John Greenwell survived an attempt by one of his own monks to poison him.
- Abbot Marmaduke Huby more than doubled the community, from 22 to 52 monks, and carved his Latin motto on the great tower he built.
- Huby's tower stands in an unusual spot, at the end of the north transept rather than over the crossing of the church.
- The last abbot, Marmaduke Bradley, reportedly paid 600 marks to obtain the post, and it was he who surrendered the abbey in 1539.
- By 1535 the abbey held interests in 138 villages, and its taxable income of £1,115 made it the richest Cistercian house in England.
- The great hall of the infirmary, about 52 by 21 metres, was one of the largest aisled halls ever built in medieval England.
- The cloister arcades were made of black marble from Nidderdale alternating with white sandstone.
- In 1928 a turbine was installed in the 12th-century mill to generate electricity, ending more than 800 years of milling there.
Why it is worth it
Fountains Abbey is among the best-preserved monastic ruins in England, and it has the good fortune to stand in one of the country's most carefully composed landscapes. The roofless church rises in the narrow valley of the River Skell near Ripon, its tower still reaching about 50 metres, with the chapter house, refectory and a vast vaulted cellarium laid out beside it. Historic England calls it the finest picturesque ruin in the country, and the ensemble — abbey, the eighteenth-century Studley Royal water garden and the deer park — has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1986.
It began with a rebellion. In 1132, after a dispute and riot at St Mary's Abbey in York, thirteen monks were expelled and given land in this sheltered valley by Archbishop Thurstan; the springs on the site gave the house its name. After a hard first winter they joined the reforming Cistercian order in 1135. Within a century Fountains had become the richest Cistercian monastery in England, its wealth built on wool from vast granges across Yorkshire. Most of what stands today was raised between about 1170 and 1247 in Romanesque and Early English Gothic, with the great tower added by Abbot Marmaduke Huby shortly before the end. Henry VIII's commissioners took the abbey's surrender in 1539.
Walk the plan and the life of the community becomes legible. The immense vaulted cellarium served as storerooms and the lay brothers' refectory, with their dormitory above it; the infirmary hall straddles the river on arches; the latrines were built over running water. Beyond the church, ground-penetrating radar found the monks' cemetery in 2016 and an industrial-scale medieval tannery in 2021. The twelfth-century watermill, one of the oldest buildings of the estate and in use for more than 800 years, is now an exhibition space.
After the Dissolution the estate passed through private hands — Fountains Hall was built from abbey stone around 1600 — until William Aislabie bought it in 1767 and joined it to his neighbouring Studley Royal estate, whose eighteenth-century water garden now leads the eye toward the ruin. The National Trust has owned the whole estate since 1983; English Heritage maintains the abbey fabric. The ruins have appeared on screen many times, from The Secret Garden to the second season of The Witcher.
Getting there
The abbey is about 4.5 km south-west of Ripon, off the B6265 towards Pateley Bridge, and about 12 miles (19 km) north of Harrogate. Leeds Bradford Airport (LBA) is about 28 km away as the crow flies. There are free car parks at the visitor centre and West Gate, and a paid one at Studley Royal. Buses run from Leeds and Harrogate to Ripon, and the DalesBus 139 serves the estate year-round, with seasonal extras; public footpaths also lead in from Ripon.
On these lists
From the encyclopaedia
Fountains Abbey is a ruined Cistercian monastery near Ripon in North Yorkshire, England. It was founded in 1132 under the direction of Thurstan, archbishop of York, and over the next four centuries became one of the wealthiest monasteries in England thanks to its large and diverse landholdings. The monastery was dissolved in 1539 as part of the English Reformation and its estates sold. Fountains Abbey is now within Studley Royal Park, a landscaped garden created in the eighteenth century.
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