Fountains Abbey in North Yorkshire, a ruined Cistercian monastry that has been reported to have a number of ghostly visitors. Reports of a choir chanting in the Chapel of Nine Altars and an Elizabethan man has been reported to haunt the building.
Just so I don't get your hopes up however, I didn't see or here anything out of the ordinary, I thought I would say that right now lol.
Anyhow, me and my mate decided to visit Fountains Abbey, a place I'd heard about and really wanted to see. What took me by surprise was the sheer size of the place, the photographs really don't do this place justice as it is MASSIVE!
Fountains Abbey is the largest monastic ruins in the country.
The following information is from the National Trust website click here to read more.
The abbey’s beginnings
The abbey was founded in 1132 by 13 Benedictine monks from St Mary’s in York. They'd grown fed up of the extravagant and rowdy way that the monks lived in York and so they escaped seeking to live a devout and simple lifestyle elsewhere. This was how they came to Fountains.
By the time three years had passed the monks had become settled into their new way of life and had been admitted to the austere Cistercian Order and with that came an important development – the introduction of the Cistercian system of lay brothers.
The lay brothers (what we would now call labourer) relieved the monks from routine jobs, giving them more time to dedicate to God rather than farming the land to get by. It was because of the help of the lay brothers that Fountains became so wealthy through wool production, lead mining, cattle rearing, horse breeding and stone quarrying.
Looking back through the photos, I wasn't happy with any of them, back in 2014, I was still learning photography, in which I still am, although I'd like to think I'm a bit better than I was back then, I'd only had a DSLR around a year or so.
We got there and the weather was terrible, it wasn't raining, but it was just thick cloud, horrible light, the sky was just like a white sheet, no noticable details or anything. So all the images posted outside, have had a sky replacement done in photoshop.
This room took my breath away, I'd seen hallways and things with ceilings similar to this, but in those places (ie Whitby Abbey) there was only a small portion left, but this was a full room intact, again, a very large room, I did spend quite a bit of time in here. Still didn't hear any chanting choirs though.
Just to outside the room was the main part of the monastry, I would have loved to have seen this place in it's prime, even as a ruin, the size of the place is just breathtaking.
Just to give you an idea of the size of this place, if you look towards where the window was, there's someone stood in front of it in a yellow jacket. I can only imagine how gorgeous this window would have been when the abbey was fully built, I would imagine it being stained glass, but what would have been on it?
This river runs directly passed the abbey, I had to do a long exposure as you can see, there was a waterfall, well a very small one, but it still counts lol.
There is a beaitful walk around the abbey, but as time was going on we had to make tracks as the placed closed at 4pm, so we didn't want to get locked in.
Another place to visit if you are in the area, as I mentioned earlier, I wasn't happy with the shots, so I do plan on going back at some point in the summer, hoping for better weather than the first time I visited the place.
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All pictures shot in 2014, using a Canon EOS 60D, with a Sigma 17-50mm F2.8 lens and a Tamron 18-200mm cheapo lens.
