When I wrote about Saltaire and Salts Mill last year I mentioned how lucky I was here in Yorkshire to have TWO Unesco World Heritage Sites on my doorstep. Today I visited the other site in North Yorkshire – Studley Royal Park and the ruins of Fountains Abbey.
Fountains Abbey is about 23 miles and a world away from busy Leeds. That is not to say that the car parks weren’t empty and there weren’t queues at the restaurant counter today and the shop wasn’t a-buzz with bargain hunters – the world and his wife had come to breathe the fresh air and walk around the gravel paths and let his children climb over the ruins. But it is easy to get away from the crowds and follow some of the paths that lead to higher levels and peace and tranquility. Every step of the paths around the estate reveals something of interest whether it’s a temple, a tower, a banqueting house, a surprise view, a river, waterfalls, a lake. It’s easy to see why the whole area is classified as a World Heritage Site.
The Temple of Fame
The Octagon Tower
The Gardens of Studley Royal
The Water Gardens with Statues
The Banqueting House
The Temple of Piety and Moon Pond
As you can see this Yorkshire World Heritage Site has a lot more than 25 trees and the time is nearly here already to take down my own Christmas Tree. I’ll be visiting Fountains Abbey a lot more times throughout the different seasons. I hope you will join me here again.
miladysboudoir 
Fountains Abbey & Studley Park are beautiful & uplifting in every season. This is very near to us and a favourite spot for a quick picnic lunch and stroll – I look forward to seeing it through your eyes over the coming months. (I also have a couple of blog posts with views of Studley & Fountains). I hope you have a wonderful year with much gallivanting! Marilyn.
Nilly, thank you again for your encouraging comments. I realise that, unplanned, I have visited FA&SRP every Christmas/New Year for a very long time now as well as other times of year. One of my Flickr sets I called Photogenic Fountains and that is just what it is at all times of year and even in all weathers. I wish you a very happy new year, too!
Lovely gardens and another wonderful visit at 21.37 on a Sunday evening without even getting my shoes on! I too will look forward to seeing this in different seasons Barbara.
I just had to google Fountains Abbey to confirm what I thought…yes, Henry VIII again. When you think about what was sold or destroyed by the Dissolution of the Monasteries, honestly his was the head that should really have come off in the Tower. Though that wouldn’t have given us our ‘ilary’s Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies, the sequel on Ann Boleyn coming out in May, very very excited about that
I’m afraid I was one of the Wolf Hall Strugglers, Lynne, I gave up after 300 or so pages. I just read today about the next book being about Anne Boleyn and I may have to give that a go. I so enjoyed Howard Brenton’s Anne Boleyn at The Globe last July.
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