3 Best Sights in Ripon, Yorkshire

You can easily spend a day at this UNESCO World Heritage site, an 822-acre complex 9 miles northwest of Knaresborough and 4 miles southwest of Ripon. It features the vast ruins of Fountains Abbey, founded in 1132 and completed in the early 1500s, as well as a deer park and a superb 18th-century water garden. The landscape—a neoclassical vision of an ordered universe, with spectacular terraces, classical temples, and a grotto—blends seamlessly with the majestic Gothic abbey, where Cistercian monks (aka White Monks owing to the color of their robes) once devoted their lives to silence, prayer, and work.

Of the abbey's surviving buildings, the lay brothers' echoing refectory and dormitory are the most complete. Fountains Mill, built by the monks in the 12th century to grind grain for the monastery, was in operation until 1927. Also on site is Fountains Hall, an elegant Jacobean mansion partially built with stones taken from the abbey. It contains two apartments that are available for short stays.

Built in the 1690s by Sir Christopher Wren with later additions and interiors by Robert Adam and others, this country house is still home to the original family and is one of Britain's finest examples of 18th-century interior decoration. Of particular note are the ornamental plasterwork, the Chippendale furniture, the domed Sculpture Hall devoted to Roman statuary, and the Tapestry Hall with priceless Gobelin tapestries. The 25 acres of gardens are justifiably famous; a double herbaceous border running down to the river separates garden "rooms," each flowering during a different season. A miniature railroad, playground, dollhouse and teddy bear exhibitions, and pedal boats amuse kids. Entry to the house is restricted to one-hour guided tours, which run from April to September.

The original 7th-century church on the site was destroyed by the Vikings, though its Saxon crypt (AD 672), the oldest structure in any English cathedral, remains. The Romanesque transepts of the current cathedral date from the 12th century, while the west front (circa 1220) is an outstanding example of Early English Gothic. The nave was rebuilt in 1500 in a Perpendicular Gothic style. Note the carving of a rabbit going down a hole in the finely carved choir stalls—it may well have inspired Lewis Carroll, whose father was a canon here.