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Fountains Abbey, Yorkshire
Fountains, Ripon HG4 3DY
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Fountains Abbey stands in the wooded valley of the River Skell in North Yorkshire — one of the most complete ruined monasteries in Britain.
Founded by thirteen Benedictine monks in 1132, it grew under the Cistercians into one of the wealthiest abbeys in England, its community managing vast sheep runs across the Dales. What survives after the Dissolution is still immense: Abbot Huby's tower rising above the treeline, a vaulted cellarium stretching along the riverbank, the roofless nave open to the sky. Beside the ruins, the eighteenth-century Studley Royal Water Garden — begun by John Aislabie after his disgrace in the South Sea Bubble scandal — draws the eye down a long formal axis to the abbey itself.
The three Fountains Ways pilgrim routes follow the Skell Valley to arrive here on foot. Managed by the National Trust, Fountains Abbey and Studley Royal together form a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
The three intersecting Fountains Way routes:
Amenities
Key facts
Britain’s Pilgrim Places
This listing is an extract from Britain’s Pilgrim Places, written by Nick Mayhew-Smith and Guy Hayward and featuring hundreds of similar spiritually charged sites and landscapes from across Britain.
Proceeds from sale of the book directly support the British Pilgrimage Trust, a non-profit UK charity. Thank you.
Location
Nearby routes
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Tom Jones
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Tom Jones
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