Fountains Abbey

As promised! Here is my post for today. :)

Fountains Abbey. I visited here in June 2013 after begging my fiance to take me. Since ever. I'd been asking to go since my first trip to England in 2011, again in 2012, and finally I said enough is enough! I MUST GO TO FOUNTAINS ABBEY.

He's from England, you see, my now husband. To him, all churches and castles look a like because all he has to pop to the shop for some groceries to see one. Me? We don't have things like this in America so I wanted to go. Badly.

Before I show you some of the photos, let me explain that I took nearly 300 while I was there. In just the span of an hour or two. So it was very difficult to choose which ones were the best representation of the place. It's huge. I cannot emphasize this point enough.

The place is ****ing HUGE. 

Even The Boy was gobsmacked. (Translation, "gob" = mouth. Hence "Gobsmackers" candy. IE: very shocked.) And he couldn't believe he had never been there before in his life.

The gobsmacked boy.

I couldn't believe this enormous place existed, hidden in a valley surrounded by trees, completely hidden away from the modern world and not visible from anywhere in the area.

So how about some history? It lies near the town of Ripon in North Yorkshire, a town name you might recognize if you watch Downton Abbey. Now you are probably thinking, "What is an abbey?" Well, I'll tell you! An abbey is a place that is occupied by monks or nuns. Now a family abbey is where a patriarchal estate has its basic functions and household operations. So we're not talking about the kind of abbey as made famous by the upstairs and downstairs lives of our favorite characters on PBS. Even though it's not actually filmed in Yorkshire. But this place, Fountains Abbey, a place where monks used to reside, is in Yorkshire. My favorite place in the world.

The Boy Points. One of our favorite picture-taking games.

It was founded in 1132 after some monks in the city of York had a dispute over wanting to return to the 6th Century Rule of Benedict, which you can read more about here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rule_of_St_Benedict

The monks were given some land by the Archbishop on which they were able to build their own church, which at the time was small, made of stone, and the outer building made of wood. They had tumultuous beginnings in the following years, with even a successful attempt at burning down the building in protest to their practices. They recovered and prospered, however. The new buildings were completed in 1170 though some additions were made afterwards. It is the largest and best preserved ruined Cistercian monastery in England sitting on 70 acres of land, with structured walls reaching over 300 feet long. I'm not even going to get in to all the numbers because there are so many additions to it throughout the years, it all gets muddled. But the place, as I said earlier, is HUGE.

Convinced yet?

Sadly, Henry VIII, you should know about him, ordered the Dissolution of the Monasteries 1539, during his war with the Catholic church. The abbey was sacked and set afire, their income was appropriated, assets disposed of, and their members moved out. Some abbeys and monasteries survived very well preserved, some untouched and left whole. Others, like Fountains, were not so lucky. Monastic libraries were also destroyed, hundreds of books stolen or destroyed, which many historians see as a devastating cultural loss caused by the English Reformation.

There is a lovely visitors' centre at the abbey and a great gift shop, all run by the National Trust. I bought an excellent and very thorough guide book for only 5 quid and admission to the grounds was around 20 quid, which was a bit pricey but I don't mind paying extra for the upkeep of such a fantastic place.  There is a bit of a walk between the centre and the actual grounds, but you'll enjoy the green Yorkshire countryside on your way there. It might even be a good idea to pack a picnic and bring it with you, sit on a blanket on the grounds, read a book, enjoy the sunlight. It was a beautiful day when we went and I can't wait to go back and take my parents. I'm dying to see my mom's face when she sees how amazing it is.

The last picture I want to show you is one I took of The Boy and it once again just shows the sheer scale of the place, but also the wonderment when you are standing in its shadow, feeling so tiny yet so amazed that people could build something so magnificent, even as far back as the 1100s. It's incredible, and I think this photo sums it up nicely as to why it should be on your list of places to see before you die. Which I think is what this blog is turning out to be about more often than anything. It also kind of looks like an epic movie poster. I hope you learned something from my post today, and have gained a new hope or dream or many in our journey this evening. Thank you for reading, and Happy New Year.