Fountains Hall

Fountains Hall is a country house near Ripon in North Yorkshire, England, close to the World Heritage Site of Fountains Abbey. It belongs to the National Trust as part of its Fountains Abbey & Studley Royal Water Garden property, and is a Grade I listed building. The details of Fountains Hall are explained in world tour guides below.


The house was built by Stephen Proctor between 1598 and 1604, partly with stone from the Abbey ruins. It is a fine example of late Elizabethan architecture, perhaps influenced by the work of Robert Smythson. After Proctors death in 1619, Fountains Hall passed into the possession of the Messenger family, who sold it to William Aislabie of neighbouring Studley Royal one hundred and fifty years later. Fountains Hall became virtually redundant as the Aislabie family remained at Studley Royal. It was leased to various tenants and at one time parts of it were used for farm storage. However it was renovated and modernised between 1928 and 1931, and the Duke and Duchess of York later King George VI and Queen Elizabeth often stayed there as guests of Lady Doris Vyner, wife of the Marquis of Ripon and sister to the then-current Duke of Richmond and Gordon.

During the Second World War, Fountains Hall and other estate buildings were used to house evacuees. Studley Royal became the wartime home of Queen Ethelburga's School of Harrogate, while the Q.E. Sanatorium was over at Fountains Hall. The stable block with the courtyard, set apart from the house at Studley Royal, was used for dormitaries while one corner became the School Chapel, at which Sunday Evensong was regularly said by the Arch Deacon at Ripon. It has a balcony of note, although it cannot be used at present because the second floor is used for weddings and the staircase is considered unsafe for the public.

During the war the Vyners lost a son and a daughter; Charles was a Royal Naval Reserve pilot missing in action near Rangoon. Elizabeth was a member of the Womens Royal Naval Service and died of lethargic encephalitis while on service in Felixstowe, Suffolk. There is a sculpture remembering them which can be seen as one comes out of the house down the stone stairs.

Elizabeth Vyner WRNS - Died on Active Service June 3rd 1942 Aged 18 years. Also her brother Charles De Grey Vyner Sub Lieut RNVR Reported missing from Air Operations off Rangoon May 2nd 1945 Aged 19 Years. After the war the Hall again fell into a state of serious dilapidation. The National Trust acquired the Fountains Estate from North Yorkshire County Council in 1983 and has been undertaking restoration work on the Hall since then. Part of it has been divided into flats, one of which is available for holiday lets. Visitors to Fountains Abbey can view the oak-paneled Stone Hall and an adjoining exhibition room, and there are plans to restore the chapel.

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Leeds Castle

Leeds Castle which is 4 miles or 6.5 km southeast of Maidstone, Kent, England, dates back to 1119, though a manor house stood on the same site from the 9th century. The castle and grounds lie to the east of the village of Leeds, Kent, which should not be confused with the far bigger and better-known city of Leeds in West Yorkshire. The travel destination and tourism attraction details of Leeds castle is explained in world tour guides below.


Built in 1119 by Robert de Crevecoeur to replace the earlier Saxon manor of Esledes, the castle became a royal palace in 1278 for King Edward I of England and his queen, Eleanor of Castile. Major improvements were made during his time, including the barbican, made up of three parts, each with its own entrance, drawbridge, gateway and portcullis.

Richard II's first wife, Anne of Bohemia, spent the winter of 1381 at the castle on her way to be married to the king. In 1395, King Richard II received the French chronicler Jean Froissart there, as Froissart described in his Chronicles. Henry VIII transformed the castle for his first wife, Catherine of Aragon, and a painting commemorating his meeting with Francis I of France still hangs there. His daughter, Queen Elizabeth I was imprisoned in the castle for a time before her coronation. Thomas Fairfax, 6th Lord Fairfax of Cameron was born at Leeds Castle. Consequently, there is a sundial at Fairfax, Virginia, telling the time in Leeds Castle, and a sundial at Leeds Castle telling the time in Virginia.

The castle escaped destruction during the English Civil War because its owners, the Culpeper family, sided with the Parliamentarians. The last private owner of the castle was the Hon. Olive, Lady Baillie, a daughter of Almeric Paget, 1st Baron Queen Borough, and his first wife, Pauline Payne Whitney, an American heiress. Lady Baillie bought the castle in 1926. She redecorated the interior, first working with the French architect and designer Armand-Albert Rateau and then, later, with the Paris decorator Stephane Boudin.


During WWII Lady Baillie hosted burned Commonwealth airmen at the castle as part of their recovery. Survivors remember the experience with fondness to this day. Upon her death in 1974, Lady Baillie left the castle to the Leeds Castle Foundation, a private charitable trust whose aim is to preserve the castle and grounds for the benefit of the public. The castle was opened to the public in 1976. On 17 July 1978, the castle was the site of a meeting between the Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and Israeli Foreign Minister Moshe Dayan in preparation for the Camp David Accords. This castle and its grounds are now a leisure destination in the county of Kent.

The castle grounds have an aviary, a maze, a grotto, a golf course and what may be the world's only museum of dog collars. The castle is available to host conferences. Also seasonal hot air balloon flights are available at Leeds Castle. The maze was constructed in 1988 using 2400 yew trees. To the disappointment of some who use the technique of solving a maze by keeping one hand on a wall while walking through as a wall follower, the method fails at the Leeds Castle Maze because not all walls are connected.

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Studley Royal Park

Studley Royal Park is a park containing, and developed around, the ruins of the Cistercian Fountains Abbey in North Yorkshire, England. It is a World Heritage Site. The site also contains features dating from the eighteenth century such as Studley Royal Water Garden.


The Fountains Abbey was founded in 1132 by thirteen Benedictine monks. They later became Cistercian monks. Following the dissolution of the monasteries in 1539 by Henry VIII, the Abbey buildings and over 500 acres or 2.0 km2 of land were sold by the Crown to Sir Richard Gresham, a merchant. The property was passed down through several generations of Sir Richards family, finally being sold to Stephen Proctor who built Fountains Hall probably between 1598 and 1604. A remarkable Elizabethan mansion, Fountains Hall was built partly with stone from the Abbey ruins. Today there are two rooms open to the public.

John Aislabie inherited the Studley estate in 1699. A socially and politically ambitious man, he first became the Tory Member of Parliament for Ripon in 1695 and in 1718 became Chancellor of the Exchequer. In 1720 disaster struck. Aislabie was a principal sponsor of the South Sea Company scheme, the bill for which was promoted by him personally. After this vast financial operation collapsed, he was expelled from Parliament and disqualified for life from public office.

Aislabie returned to Yorkshire and devoted himself to the creation of the garden he had begun in 1718. After his death in 1742, his son William extended his scheme by purchasing the remains of the Abbey and Fountains Hall. He also extended the landscaped area in the picturesque romantic style, contrasting with the formality of his father's work. Between them, the two created what is arguably England's most important 18th century Water Garden.

After Williams death, the estate passed to his daughter, then her niece. It escaped major reshaping and the garden and park passed to the Vyner family, descendants of the Aislabies. In 1966 the estate was purchased by West Riding County Council and was acquired by the National Trust in 1983. The Abbey part of the estate is currently managed by English Heritage on behalf of the National Trust. In 1986 the entire Park was designated a World Heritage Site by UNESCO. Along with the Abbey itself and Fountains Hall, the Park contains a number of other notable historic features. The water garden at Studley Royal is one of the best surviving examples of a Georgian water garden in England.

The garden was created by John Aislabie in 1718. It was expanded by his son, William, after Aislabies death. William expanded the property, purchasing the adjacent Fountains Estate. The garden's elegant ornamental lakes, canals, temples and cascades provide a succession of dramatic eye-catching vistas. The garden is also studded with a number of follies including a neo-Gothic castle and a palladian style banqueting house. The 16th-century house at Studley Royal, rebuilt in Palladian style, as it appeared in 1880; it burned to the ground in 1946.

St Mary's Church was one of two, late Victorian, memorial churches in Yorkshire, built by the family of the First Marquess of Ripon in memory of Frederick Gratham Vyner. The other is the Church of Christ the Consoler at Skelton-on-Ure, and the architect of both was William Burges. Vyner was murdered by Greek bandits in 1870 and his mother, Lady Mary Vyner, and his sister, Lady Ripon, determined to use the unspent ransom, gathered to obtain his release, to build two churches in Vyners memory on their respective Yorkshire estates.

Burges appointment as architect was most likely due to the connection between his greatest patron, John Crichton-Stuart, 3rd Marquess of Bute and Vyner, who had been friends at Oxford. St Mary's, on Lady Ripons estate at Studley Royal, was commissioned in 1870 and work began in 1871. The church was consecrated in 1878. As at Skelton, Burges' design demonstrates a move from his favoured Early-French, to an English style. Pevsner writes of a Victorian shrine, a dream of Early English glory. The interior is spectacular, exceeding Skelton in richness and majesty. The stained glass is of particularly high quality. St Mary's is Burges ecclesiastical masterpiece.

The church stands in a medieval deer park, home to 500 deer and a wealth of flora and fauna. The Deer Park once enclosed Studley Royal House, but this was largely destroyed by fire in December 1716 and had to be almost entirely rebuilt. The replacement building, was, in turn, extensively damaged by fire in 1946 and was demolished soon afterwards. Only the large stable block, built between 1728 and 1732, has survived. This is now a private house. Until about 2000 it belonged to Sir Paul Sykes, but has since been purchased by the author Susie Bulmer. The mill is the only 12th-century Cistercian cornmill left in the UK and the oldest 'intact' building on the estate.

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