Fountains Abbey

Klaus with K (license)

Of the three abbeys we visited — Hailes, Easby, and Fountains — Fountains Abbey was the biggest and best preserved. Fountains Abbey in its day must have been truly magnificent. The most obvious feature of the abbey is its 160-foot tall tower, which despite having been destroyed by Henry VIII, still towers over the valley. Approaching the abbey from the visitors’ center, the tower can be seen rising above the walls of the valley, and you don’t realize that you’re looking at just the very top of a tall tower until you walk the quarter mile to valley edge.

The tip of the iceberg:

The rest of the tower:

But big as the tower is, the abbey itself is massive. While some of the abbey has been reduced to foundations, as was most of Hailes, there are still substantial portions standing, including most of the church:

Can you imagine the size of the stained glass window that went in there?

But there was more — much more — to the abbey than the tower and church.

Cloister court:

Great cloister (there is a cross way down at the far end):

And in addition to the remains of the great abbey, for the price of admission (free to National Trust members), you get to walk the entire grounds of Studley Royal Park, a designated World Heritage Site. Personally, I’m not big into looking at plants, so gardens don’t really excite me, so I stayed with the kids while Melinda checked out the Studley Royal Water Garden.

Iain Gilmour (license)

Overall, Fountains Abbey was the biggest and best of all the abbeys we visited. While there is no reason to restrict yourself to visiting just one abbey, if you can only visit one, visit Fountains. We visited Hailes Abbey, in the Cotswolds, first, which is the poorest preserved of the abbeys we visited. However, we are glad we did, since its audio tour was probably the best (though Fountains was also very good). However, if we had visited Hailes Abbey after Fountains, we would have been sorely disappointed, so if you are visiting more than one abbey on your trip to Britain, visit Fountains Abbey last. We liked Fountains Abbey so much, we went back for a second visit.

Count this a definite recommendation for Fountains Abbey.