Studley Royal Park is an estate in North Yorkshire, England. The site has an area of and includes an 18th-century landscaped garden; the ruins of Fountains Abbey; Fountains Hall, a Jacobean mansion; and the Victorian St Mary's church, designed by William Burges. Studley Royal House, around which the park and gardens were designed, burned down in 1946. The park, as Studley Royal Park including the ruins of Fountains Abbey, has been designated a World Heritage Site. It has also been designated a grade I listed park and garden by Historic England, and various structures within it are individually listed.
After the Dissolution of the Monasteries, the Fountains estate was owned by the Gresham, Proctor, and Messenger families. At the same time, the adjacent Studley estate was separately held by the Mallorie (or Mallory) and then Aislabie families, after the marriage of Mary Mallory and George Aislabie. The estates were combined on 22 December 1767, when William Aislabie purchased the Fountains estate from John Messenger. In 1966, the property came into public ownership after its purchase by West Riding County Council. In 1983, it was acquired by the National Trust.
The gardens and park reflect every stage in the evolution of English garden fashion, from the late 17th century to the 1780s and beyond. Most unusually, both John and William embraced new garden fashions by extending their designed landscape rather than replacing and remaking outmoded parts. As a result, the cumulative whole is a catalogue of significant landscaping styles.
Background
thumb|The River Skell runs through the estate.
Studley Royal Park is an estate in North Yorkshire, England. The land broadly slopes and east-facing views are a feature of its landscape. The River Skell runs through the site, cutting through layers of Upper Carboniferous sandstone and Permian Magnesian limestone. The park was formed through the aggregation of the former land-holdings of Fountains Abbey, which were purchased by the Gresham family after the Dissolution, and the estate of Studley Royal.
Whilst the prehistoric origins of the land upon which Studley Royal Park now stands are under-researched, there is evidence for settlement in the area. An excavated flint assemblage from the park demonstrates the presence of people working flint on the site. There is evidence of farming activity dated to 4,500 years ago. During the medieval period, monastic landholding steadily increased. For example, in the 1220s, Cassandra de Aleman donated land at Swanley to become part of the monastic grange.|name=first|group=note however these leases excluded mineral extraction, which were kept by Messenger. The family were also keenly interested in the ruins of the abbey itself, and allowed people to visit from as early as 1655. A depiction of the enclosed park first appeared on Christopher Saxton's 1577 map of Yorkshire. Other early features included The Upper Canal and Drum Falls. Flooding subsequently damaged these early developments, and by 1726 approximately 100 men were working to create water features, which included canals and ponds. Under her ownership, she made further additions to the grounds, which included The Obelisk, as well as Robin Hood's Well, which enclosed a small spring. The Settlers Society ended at the outbreak of the Second World War, but its accommodation was repurposed to house German and Polish refugees. After the war, the upkeep of the estate became too expensive for the Vyner family, who sold it to Broadlands Properties for £1,250,000. They subsequently also sold Fountains Hall to West Riding County Council in 1969. St Mary’s Church is owned by the State and managed by the National Trust under a local management agreement. In 1992, a new visitor centre and car parks were designed by Ted Cullinan to accommodate growing visitor numbers. Lying north-west of the Abbey above the valley floor, the new visitor centre incorporated a shop, large restaurant, lecture theatre and exhibition space (currently office space) arranged around an open courtyard. In 2016, Mat Collishaw created Seria Ludo and The Pineal Eye in the Temple of Piety. In 2018, Charles Holland, Lucy Orta and Flea Folly Architects created artworks to reimagine lost follies in the landscape. In 2021, Steve Messam created three artworks in an exhibition entitled These Passing Things and in 2022 Joe Cornish created a photographic exhibition Still Time to Wonder in various buildings on the property.
Significance
Studley Royal, under National Trust ownership, is the preserved core of a once much more substantial Aislabie project, which incorporated the surrounding agrarian landscape that they owned, long-distance views to Ripon and beyond, and rides extending to other designed landscapes including Laver Banks and Hackfall (seven miles from Studley).
The grade I-listed canal is about long and wide, and is angled near the weir called Drum Falls. It has gritstone walls and a puddled clay base. On the east side is a segmental arch covering a sluice outlet. The weir at its north end is grade II* listed along with its piers, pavilions and balustrades. The weir is built of gritstone and has a cascade of four steps. It is flanked by the piers with bands of frosted rustication and ball finials. Outside these are the balustraded walls leading to fishing pavilions over double-arched sluices. Each pavilion has a Venetian window, a moulded eaves cornice, and a pyramidal roof with a ball finial and a weathervane. Each revetment wall has a stone mask and a water spout with a stone basin.
The Half-Moon Pond is grade II* listed, as are the Moon and Crescent Ponds. They have stone walls and are lined in clay. The Moon Pond is a circular with a submerged causeway, and it is flanked by the crescent-shaped ponds. The Half-Moon Pond has parallel semicircular sides joined by straight sides.
St Mary's Church
right|thumb|View of the West End of the church
St Mary's Church was built by the architect William Burges and commissioned by the family of the 1st Marquess of Ripon. It has been suggested that the construction of this place of worship was prompted by the death of Frederick Grantham Vyner, who was kidnapped and killed in Greece in 1870.
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 Ripon's 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. Nikolaus 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."
Both marquesses and their wives are buried there. John Clerk, visiting in 1738, described how the buck deer moved in a group, so that they "resemble a moving forrest [sic]".
Buildings and structures
Studley Royal House
right|thumb|Studley Royal House in 1880
Studley Royal House (or Hall) stood in the north-west corner of the park. Originally a medieval manor house, there is a record from the 1220s of an extensive garden created by Cassandra de Aleman.
Built of stone under a slate roof with distinctive pavilion towers in each of the four corners, the pristine, 11,708sq ft house surrounds a central square courtyard overlooked by all the main rooms and dominated by the working clock tower. Excavation demonstrated that the village was aligned with the important road to Aldfield. The earliest ceramics from the site date to c.1180–1220, whilst the latest finds date from c.1300. The site included a large two-storey miller's house with a stone fireplace that was rare for the period. The house was sold in 1362 by Widow Horner to Richard Tempest.
The temple is in rendered brick and stone, and has a Westmorland slate roof with lead verges. On the front is a portico of six Roman Doric columns on a gritstone pavement, with an entablature, a pediment and a pedestal. The central doorway has an architrave with a mask keystone, and is flanked by pairs of windows in architraves. In each of the returns is a doorway in an eared surround with a triple keystone.
Lost buildings
Wattle Hall
One of the buildings most frequently attested in the early eighteenth-century is the Wattle Hall. Surviving records suggest that it was made of bent branches rather than brick or stone, and it was repaired in 1732.
See also
- Listed buildings in Lindrick with Studley Royal and Fountains
Image gallery
<gallery>
File:East Gate, Studley Royal (geograph 2243765).jpg|Main entrance to park
File:Studley Royal stable block - geograph.org.uk - 651715.jpg|Stable block, now converted to a private house
File:Studley Banqueting Hall - geograph.org.uk - 1560618.jpg|Interior of banqueting house
File:Water Garden and Tower.jpg|View of the water garden showing the Gothic folly of the Octagonal Tower
File:StMarysChurchChancel.jpg|Chancel of St Mary's Church
File:Studley Obelisk.jpg|The Obelisk Above St Mary's Church
File:Studley Octagon Tower - geograph.org.uk - 1526583.jpg|Octagon Tower
File:Weir walkway - Studley Royal Park - North Yorkshire, England - DSC00801.jpg|One of the fishing pavilions and weir
File:Temple of Fame - geograph.org.uk - 651725.jpg|Temple of Fame
File:Fountains Abbey 2016 051.jpg|View across the Water Gardens
File:Fountains Abbey - geograph.org.uk - 103113.jpg|Cascade
</gallery>