Hi there everyone 😀
After our very busy day out visiting the city of York it was time for a bit of a foray out into the countryside and Fountains Abbey and the neighbouring Studley Water Gardens was on the cards.
The weather forecast had been a bit dodgy so far and we weren’t sure whether we would be able to visit … as none of us fancied it in the pouring rain … but we got so lucky with plenty of blue skies and sunshine.
We parked up at the West Gate car park with plans for us all to explore the abbey area and then for Martin and I to return to the car and drive to the Water Gardens car park, whilst Jackie and Phil made their way on foot.
We started our visit at Fountains Hall …
… where we managed to get a small fix of Christmas decorations …
… before continuing along the driveway towards the Abbey …
We decided to make our next stop the old watermill … which gave us great views back across to the Hall …
… and back across to the Abbey …
There was certainly plenty to see at the mill …
… and Martin and I couldn’t resist a bit of bell ringing practice …
We made our way down to the Abbey …
It’s in an absolutely beautiful spot and, once you get up close and personal, there was so much to see. It’s a huge site and, at its heyday was pretty much a totally self contained community, with all the accompanying buildings and accommodation that this would have entailed.
We spent a good while exploring and just trying to imagine how everything fit together back in the day … I took soooooo many photographs but have picked some of my favourites to share with you …
Once we’d seen all we could of the Abbey Jackie and Phil headed off for the Water Gardens and Martin and I headed back to the car … calling in at a small visitor centre on the way.
We had missed this on the way in but it really did make sense of all we’d seen with a potted history of the Abbey through the years and a really good scale model of the site as it would have been …
Finally we were ready to make our way to the Water Gardens car park, where we were greeted by this handsome chap …
By now there was some serious cloud building up …
… but the rain held off and there was still sunshine to be had …
We headed behind the cafe and across the small wooden footbridge … and alongside one of the huge pools …
… where we met back up with Jackie and Phil in a spot by the temple …
We made the most of the sunshine and warmed up with flasks of hot soup …
… before it was time to head back …
There was just time for a quick cuppa in the cafe before heading back to the car and Anthology Cottage.
Another lovely day out courtesy of the National Trust on the most glorious of Autumn days 😀
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A few years ago when my son and I were volunteering at the NT (Malham) we were lucky enough to have a day out there as part as a thank you from the NT. We were given a 'behind the scenes' tour by one of the local rangers and they said something very interesting.
ReplyDeleteBefore NT were the guardians, the buildings were looked after English Heritage (can't remember why they handed it over to NT) however, initially the NT were a bit 'sniffy' at the lack of care to the buildings - particularly the vaulted brick ceilings. Until they discovered that bats used the gaps to nest in and suddenly the 'lack of care' became apparent that it was actually a deliberate act of 'bat care'.
The ranger said that that day there were quite a few shamed faced folk at their initial reactions.
Oooh a behind the scenes tour sounds like fun. If we go again I will be sure to look up for bats. We didn’t see any sign of them this time but then we weren’t looking. X
DeleteWhat a fabulous place Fountains Abbey looks to be, and your photographs are superb. x
ReplyDeleteThank you. We were very lucky … blue sky always makes everything look so much better x
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