Fountains Abbey

Fountains Abbey, in the West Riding of Yorkshire, three miles S.W. of Ripon, is one of the best specimens of a ruined abbey to be found in England. It is said to have been founded in 1114 - a year after the foundation of Rievaulx - by Cistercian monks, who were expelled from St. Mary's, York, and built some wooden cells under a huge elm. The abbey eventually became wealthy, and the buildings were added to at different periods, and so exhibit a great variety of architecture. There are fragments of the gate-house, the hospitium, the nave, transept, choir, and tower of 168 feet, and a beautiful Lady Chapel, with slender, octagonal pillars of considerable height, bearing lofty arches, which are connected with the clerestory of the nave. There are also remains of refectory, chapterhouse, and abbot's house. By the spring, which is supposed to have originated the name of the abbey, Robin Hood fought with the curtal friar.