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In 1132 a dispute and riot broke out at St. Mary’s Abbey in York and this led to the founding of Fountains Abbey. The monks of St. Mary’s had pleaded to return to the early sixth century rule of St. Benedict. Their pleas went unheard and thirteen were exiled and were given refuge by the Archbishop of York. Thursten, then Archbishop, provided them with land in the River Skell valley and though it was a wild and uninhabited place it had all the essential materials for the creation of a monastery. The valley gave shelter, water and stone and timber for the construction of the buildings.

In 1135 the exiled monks became part of the Cistercian Order that had been founded in France in 1098. The rules of this order were very rigorous and the monks were committed to long periods of silence and barely lived above subsistence level. They earned the name of “White Monks” from the habits they wore that were made from the coarse undyed sheep’s wool.

A Rich Religious Centre

Fountains Abbey developed due to the introduction of lay brothers who were, for the most part, illiterate but they relieved the brothers from day to day routine jobs. Fountains Abbey would not have attained its great wealth or economic importance without them. By the middle of the 13th century it was one of the richest religious centres in England. Strangely the very success of the system set up by the monks had in it the seeds of its decline. The lay brothers encouraged the monks to extend the estates beyond the monastic self-sufficiency that had been the rule in the past.

Economic ruin set in following the bad harvests and Scots raids during the 14th century and the Black Death sealed the fate of the Abbey. Despite its financial problems Fountains Abbey remained of importance within the Cistercian Order. The Abbots often sat in Parliament and Marmaduke Huby (Abbot from 1495-1526) revived the order economically and it flourished until the Dissolution of the Monasteries.

After the Dissolution, the abbey buildings stood empty in the hope that it would become the site of the cathedral of the new Dales bishopric. However, this was not to be and by 1540 the glass and lead from the dismantled building had found its way to York and Ripon.

The Abbey passed through many hands and in 1767 it was sold to William Aislabie who landscaped the abbey ruins as a picturesque folly to be viewed from the Water Garden and from this it became the visitor attraction that it is today.

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