Fountains Abbey
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How it came to be
In 1132, after a dispute at St Mary's Abbey in York, 13 monks were expelled. Thurstan, Archbishop of York, took them under his protection and gave them land in the valley of the River Skell. They named the place Fountains after its six springs, and in 1135 they joined the Cistercian order.
Over four centuries the abbey gathered wide lands and became one of the wealthiest in England. Henry VIII closed it in 1539 in the Dissolution of the Monasteries, and the next year it was sold to Sir Richard Gresham. Stephen Proctor, who acquired the site in 1597, built Fountains Hall, partly from the abbey's stone.
On the neighbouring Studley estate John Aislabie began a water garden of canals and cascades in 1718. He had promoted the South Sea Company scheme and was expelled from Parliament after its collapse in 1720. His son William bought the abbey estate in 1767 and joined the two. Work on St Mary's Church, designed by William Burges, began in 1871. The site was inscribed in 1986.
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