We visited Fountains Abbey in 2009, paying rather more attention to the abbey ruins than to the enormous 18th century water gardens that adjoin and actually encompass it. The family that owned Studley Royal purchased the abbey ruins to be one of their gardens' many follies. It is all World Heritage Site now, owned and administered by the National Trust and English Heritage. And this time we did the water gardens tour with a guide and pretty much skipped the abbey.
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In the dress-up room: "O Lord, we beseech thee,
Amen" |
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Main bits of the abbey ruins; it was England's largest and
most prosperous Cistercian abbey, finally laid low by the
plague, resulting full employment and higher wages,
public contempt for ecclesiastical greed and ostentation;
and then Henry VIII |
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Location, location, location: a beautiful valley, nice river,
about forty yards down from the quarry |
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| First of the many large water features, the rectangular pond |
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| Nice little temple/folly, the first of several |
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| The huge circular pond |
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| Flanked by the crescent ponds |
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| More temples |
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| More follies, all with fine views |
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More lakes, ponds, the deer park; alas, the great house
burned down in 1946 |
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Beautiful Victorian church on the grounds
commemorating the loss of a family member |
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