Descriptive Gazetteer Entry for FOUNTAINS-ABBEY

FOUNTAINS-ABBEY, a magnificent monastic ruin in Studley-Royal township, Ripon parish, W. R. York - shire; within the grounds of Studley Park, adjacent to the river Skell, 3 miles SW of Ripon. The abbey was founded, for Cistertians, in 1132; suffered much injury by fire in 1146; underwent speedy restoration, on apparently a small scale; was refounded, on a grand plan, in 1203, by John of York, the eighth abbot; was completed, excepting the choir and upper part of the tower, in 1246, by John of Kent; became one of the wealthiest monastic establishments in the kingdom; possessed about 60, 000 acres of land in Craven, enclosed with a ring fence; had revenues, at the dissolution, amounting to £998 a year; was sold, by Henry VIII., to Sir Richard Gresham; and passed to a number of successive owners. Its name may have been derived from Fontaines in Burgundy, the birth-place of Bernard, the founder of the Cistertian order; or it may have been derived from Skeldale, which was designated in Latin De Fontibus; or it may, as supposed by Gent, in his poem of Studley Park, have been derived from neighbouring springs. Gent says, -

Low in a vale, with springs well stored, and wood,
And sovereign herbs whence failing health's renewed,
A neighbouring abbey next-invites the eye;
Stupendous act of former piety!
From streams and springs which nature here contrives,
The name of Fountains this sweet place derives.

The edifice and its appendages, when perfect, occupied ten acres; and the principal extant ruins still occupy about two acres. The church measures 385¼ feet by 67¼; and it comprised a galilee-porch, a nave with aisles, a transept with eastern aisle, a choir with aisles, a lady-chapel, and a northern tower. The galilee-porch is transition Norman, and 15 feet wide, with a double open arcade. The nave is also transition Norman, of eleven bays, with columns 6 feet around and 23 feet high; has a clerestory, but no triforium; was disposed, over the eastern half of its aisles, in chapels; and has a great west window, reconstructed in 1494. The transept is of the same date as the galilee and the nave; and had two chapels in ea. ch wing. The choir was completed in 1483; is now aisle-less; and has a single light in each bay. The lady chapel stands across the end of the choir, in the manner of a transept; measures 150 feet in length; had nine altars similarly to the chapel at Durham cathedral; and has a great east window, now a blank, but formerly in later English architecture, 60 feet high, and 231/3 feet wide. The tower stood originally at the intersection of the nave and transept, but was reconstructed at the north end of the transept; is fine later English, of four stages; and measures about 25 feet square, and 168½ feet in height. The cloister, the cloister-garth, the refectory, the chapter-house, the frater-house, and other structures connected with them, are on the south side of the church, filling the space between it and the river Skell; the infirmary, the guest-hall, the house for strangers, and the gate-houses are west of the cloister, along the Skell; and the great hall and the abbots house are east of the buildings connected with the chapter-house and the frater-house. The cloister is a nave of two aisles, divided by a range of columns; has twenty bays; and measures 300 feet by 42. The cloister-garth is 128 feet square. The refectory is early English; forms a nave of two aisles; and measures 109 feet by 46½. The chapter-house was built in 1153-70; is a rectangle of 84½ feet by 41; and was divided into aisles by ten round marble columns. The frater-house is transition Norman; was vaulted; and measures 109 feet by 29. The guest-hall was built by John of Kent; consists of a nave and aisles, of six bays; and measures 73 feet by 23. The great hall of the abbots house is reached by a long alley from the cloister-court; measures 171 feet by 70; and consisted of a nave and two aisles, divided by eighteen columns. The abbots house itself was taken down in 1611, by Sir Stephen Proctor, as a quarry for building Fountain's Hall. This mansion stands about 600 feet W of the abbey; was erected at a cost of £3, 000; and contains some interesting old tapestry, and a sculpture of the judgment of Solomon.

A number of monuments are in the abbey church. A blue marble slab to Abbot John of Ripon, who died in 1435, is in the nave; a slab to Abbot Thirsk, who was executed at Tyburn in 1537, is in the N aisle; an effigies of Baron Roger de Moubray, who died at Ghent in 1298, is in the transept; a slab to Abbot Burley, who died in 1410, is in the south wing; a stone coffin of Lord Henry Percy of Alnwick, who died 1315, is in the choir; and slabs to Abbots John of York, John of Kent, Allerton, Adam, Reginald, and Otley, who all died in the 13th century, are in the chapter-house. John de Ripon, commemorated in the nave, attended the councils of Basle and Constance; and Murdach, another of the abbots, became archbishop of York. Michael, the bishop of Sodor and Man at the beginning of the 13th century, was buried here. Robin Hood's well is in the neighbourhood; sculptures, commemorative of him are on a buttress of the Lady chapel; and a famous tradition respecting him says that a monk of the abbey encountered and overcame him, threw him into the Skell, and for a time held both him and a strong body of his archers at bay, but was at length vanquished by his arrows. A metrical version of the tradition tells, about Robin's boast of his prowess, -

That caused Will Scadlocke to laugh,
He laughed full heartily,
'There 1ives a Curtal friar in Fountains abbey
Will beat both him and thee. '
This Curtal friar had kept Fountains dale,
Seven long years and more;
There was neither knight, lord, nor earl,
Could make him yield before.


(John Marius Wilson, Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales (1870-72))

Linked entities:
Feature Description: "a magnificent monastic ruin"   (ADL Feature Type: "historical sites")
Administrative units: Yorkshire AncC
Place: Fountains Abbey

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