Wednesday at Fountains

Wednesday (24.07.2024) was probably the warmest day of our two weeks in Ripon. At a high of 24C, with a mix of sun and clouds and a pleasant breeze, it was a summer‘s day directly out of a picture book.

We chose that day for a walk to Fountains Abbey, as we do every year at least once during our stay here.

From our cottage to the large area that combines Studley Royal (deer park and water garden) and Fountains Abbey (the actual abbey ruins as well as Fountains Hall, Fountains Mill and a few other buildings) run by the National Trust, it takes about an hour at a leisurely pace.

St. Mary‘s, the beautiful church in the deer park, was closed for lack of volunteers.

Entrance to St Mary‘s

View from the church towards Ripon, all the way to the cathedral

another door to the church, rather narrow…

…and a much wider one.

The visitor centre has a shop we very much like and nearly always leave with some purchase or other; this time, I found a book I wanted. Next door is a restaurant where we sat at an outdoors table for lunch.

From there, we made our way to Fountains Hall, where we found the four rooms open to the public furnished differently from previous years, and new guide sheets with information about the hall itself and each room.

The gardens between the hall and the river are particularly beautiful this time of year, and the summer house (built in 1911) has always been a firm favourite of ours.

Next was the mill, with an exhibition of sketches and paintings by Peter M. Hicks. I liked some of the preparatory sketches more than the finished paintings.

The grass and wild flowers around the mill have grown very high.

On to the ruins, as impressive as always. With the wet spring and summer the area has been having, the plants on the walls are more abundant than usual. It looks beautiful but is of course not ideal for the already crumbling structures.

stairway to heaven

looking back towards the abbey

and forward to Studley Royal water garden

Before we left the estate, we stopped at the tea room at Studley Lake for cold drinks and a brownie. 

Studley Lake with the tea room to the right

Back at the cottage, it was still warm and nice enough for us to sit on the bench outside. In the garden, a set of swings had been set up since our 2023 visit, and our landlady got the swing seat out of the shed for us.