Fountains Abbey
 Abbeys |
Yorkshire offers the visitor two of the most dramatic examples of abbey ruins in Britain, Fountains and Rievaulx. Both are splendidly romantic in their ruined grandeur yet contrast in their style of architecture.
Fountains is hidden away in a secluded valley within the private grounds of a large house. Founded in 1132, the abbey is built in a plain style with fat, round columns and simple arches, its extensive remains now dominated by the tall Perpendicular Tower. Another memorable feature is the multiple rows of cloisters extending for some 312 ft, making it the largest monastic ruin in England. Incorporated within it is a remarkable stretch of vaulting, which forms the undercroft of the lay brothers' dormitory. At the far end a stream runs beneath it over which the toilets were built. There is a simplicity of scale in the design of Fountains that provides a noticeable contrast with the soaring grace of Rievaulx.
The founding fathers were a small group of Benedictine monks from St Mary's in York who, because of their impoverished state, applied to the Cistercians at Claivaux in France for assistance. The Cistercians, themselves established only 35-years before, had avowed their intention of returning to the simple rule of St Benedict. As a result, in 1135, Fountains became a Cistercian abbey, and the organisational skills of this order saw an upturn in its fortunes.
The prosperity of medieval central Yorkshire was based on wool, and by the early 16 th century the monks at Fountains had brought great wealth to the abbey through their involvement in the wool trade. By the time of the Dissolution in 1539, it was the richest abbey in England. One obvious indication of its later wealth, and of the immodest tendencies of the abbot, Marmaduke Huby, was the building in the early 1500's of the huge Perpendicular Tower, attached to the north transept of the church. An earlier example of conspicuous spending is the Chapel of the Nine Altars at the east-end of the church dating from the early 1200's. As with its sister abbeys throughout the land Fountains' fortunes waned after 1539, when the unforgiving hand of Henry VIII dissolved the monasteries.
Two centuries later, however, this handsome abbey was acquired by William Aislabie, who made it the focal point of his landscaped gardens at Studley Royal Park. The estate includes formal water-gardens, follies, ornamental temples, and statues and is bordered by a lake and a large Deer Park, some 400-acres in extent.