Fountains Abbey and Studley Royal

Sam Roebuck

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To quote National Trust's Fountains Abbey website:

'Yorkshire's first World Heritage Site is a huge estate of beauty, contrasts and surprises including the largest abbey ruins in the country and one of England's most spectacular Georgian water gardens.

The perfect place to escape from it all and enjoy a great, full day out, there's so much to see and do at Fountains. Set your own pace to explore over 800 acres of naturally beautiful countryside, with ten historic buildings to discover spanning 800 years of history and acre after acre of open space.'

You can start by exploring the abbey (National Trust members free, non-members please check the website for current prices), as an alternative to Waymarks 1 to 3, then continue with the walk from Waymark 4.

Soon after Waymark 4, we come across an obelisk (anyone know anything about the history of this?) beside the truly beautiful St Mary's Church and the Chorister's House. Now we're into the Studley Royal Deer Park and the route takes us down to the lake (used to hold a head of water for the abbey's famous water gardens).

The next leg of the walk takes us along the stunning, steep-sided gorge of the River Skell.

The return leg is on the higher ground above the abbey and the walk ends with a great view down into the abbey grounds.

This walk is on the whole, quite dog-friendly.

For a longer version of this walk, see Walk 5625.

England - North England - Yorkshire - Nidderdale

Features

Ancient Monument, Cafe, Church, Gift Shop, Great Views, Lake/Loch, National Trust, Public Transport, River, Stately Home, Tea Shop, Toilets, Woodland

5/2/2016 - Steve Wallace

Just completed this walk, and very pretty it is too. Regarding dog-friendliness, there are no stiles or barriers to dogs, but about half the walk is through a deer park with instructions to keep dogs on lead. When we were there though the deer were all on the far side of the estate miles from we daytrippers, so several dogs were having a leadless gambol. The only significant mud occurs around the farm, where the cow-herd has trampled the grass, but this is still well-passable (though I would not care to do it in trainers).

4/17/2012 - Jan Holtham

Absolutely fabulous walk through very pretty countryside. We had to park in the main carpark at the visitors centre as the west car park is now mainly (maybe exclusively) for disabled visitors. However, this proved to be the right choice as it starts the walk with the interesting church and deer park. We finished the walk with views of the Abbey and a visit through the west gate, rather than picking the road up from startpoint 1-4.