Fountains Abbey & Studley Royal Water Garden
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.
