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It's tantalizing to imagine how the English landscape might have appeared had Henry VIII not dissolved the monasteries, with all the artistic ruin precipitated by that act. Fountains Abbey , four miles southwest of Ripon off the B6265, gives a good idea of what might have been, and is the one ruin amongst Yorkshire's many monastic fragments you should make a point of seeing. Linked to it are the elegant water gardens of Studley Royal , landscaped in the eighteenth century to form a setting for the abbey. The estate is owned by the National Trust, which organizes an ambitious range of activities and events - from opera and firework displays to free guided tours (April-Oct daily; tel 01765/608888). There are regular buses to Ripon from Harrogate and York (amongst other places), but the onward service to the abbey is patchy in summer, paltry in winter. Ring Ripon tourist office or the abbey for the latest. Beautifully set in a narrow, wooded valley, Fountains Abbey (April-Sept daily 10am-7pm; Oct, Feb & March daily 10am-5pm or dusk; Nov-Jan closed Fri; last admission 1hr before closing; GBP4.50 including Studley Royal and Fountains Hall; NT) was founded in 1133 by thirteen dissident Benedictine monks from the wealthy abbey of St Mary's in York. Within a hundred years, Fountains had become the wealthiest Cistercian foundation in England and it was to this century that the three main phases of the abbey's structural development belong: the church's nave and transepts, the domestic buildings, and the church's east end. Most immediately eye-catching is the abbey church , in particular the Chapel of the Nine Altars at its eastern end, whose delicacy is in marked contrast to the austerity of the rest of the nave. A great sixty-foot-high window rises over the chapel, complemented by a similar window at the nave's western doorway, over 370ft away. The Perpendicular Tower , almost 180ft high, looms over the whole ensemble, added by the eminent early sixteenth-century Abbot Marmaduke Huby, who presided over perhaps the abbey's greatest period of prosperity. Equally grandiose in scale is the undercroft of the Lay Brothers' Dormitory off the cloister, a stunningly vaulted space over three hundred feet long that was used to store the monastery's annual harvest of fleeces. The size of the lay buildings - including a substantial Lay Brothers' Infirmary - gives an idea of the number of lay brothers at the abbey. All are considerably larger than the corresponding monks' buildings, of which the most prepossessing are the Chapter House and Refectory - notice the huge fireplace of the tiny Warming Room alongside the refectory, the only heated space in the entire complex. Outside the abbey perimeter, between the gatehouse and the bridge, are the Abbey Mill and Fountains Hall (same times; NT), the latter a fine example of early seventeenth-century domestic architecture. A riverside walk, marked from the visitor centre car park, takes you through the abbey and past Fountains Hall to a series of ponds and ornamental gardens, harbingers of Studley Royal (same times as the abbey; NT). This lush medley of lawns, lake, woodland and Deer Park (daily dawn to dusk; free) was laid out in 1720. There are some scintillating views of the abbey from the gardens, though it's the cascades and water gardens, fed by canals from the Skell, which command most attention, framed by several small temples positioned for their aesthetic effect. The full circuit, from visitor centre to abbey and gardens and then back, is a good couple of miles' walk.
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