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
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.Larwood, Jonathan, and Natural England Palaeontology. "Geodiversity–a cultural template." Culturally Natural or Naturally Cultural (2017): 16–19. 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.
Material from the Iron Age is also associated with the site, including a lost gold torc. Iron Age enclosures at Mackershaw date from the sixth to fifth centuries BC. In the later phases of that enclosure, Romano-British material, including an Egyptian glass bangle, has also been discovered. The presence of Romano-British communities is also attested by the excavation of four skeletons by the vicar of Wath in 1881.
Documentary sources and place-name evidence, rather than archaeological excavation, provide insight into the early medieval period in the area. The Venerable Bede recorded that King Alhfrith of Deira granted land for a monastery near Ripon to Eata.
History
Fountains Abbey estate Fountains Abbey was founded in 1132 by Benedictine monks who left St Mary's Abbey, York to follow the Cistercian order. 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.
After the dissolution of the monasteries in 1539 by Henry VIII, the Abbey buildings and over 40% of the former monastic estate was sold by the Crown to Sir Richard Gresham, a merchant. The Greshams, as new owners of a formerly monastic site had a responsibility to render it incapable of future religious use. This was done through a programme of demolition and sale of goods, which included the stripping of lead from the buildings, the removal of glass and Nidderdale 'marble' from the church.
The property was passed down through several generations of Sir Richard's family, then sold to Stephen Proctor in 1596. This included the precinct, Fountains Park and Swanley Grange. It was Proctor who built Fountains Hall probably between 1598 and 1604. The hall is a Jacobean mansion, built partly with stone from the Abbey ruins. Proctor was subsequently imprisoned and sold Fountains Park to pay his legal fees. In April 1622 the Fountains estate was re-combined by Timothy Whittingham, who re-mortgaged it the same year to Humphrey Wharton. Over the subsequent two years, parts of the estate were ceded to several creditors, but ultimately Wharton regained control. The 1627 estate sale includes details for a lead casting workshop in the Warming House; the estate was bought by Richard Ewens and his son-in-law John Messenger. During the English Civil War Messenger reputedly fought at the Battles of Marston Moor and at Naseby. In 1655 Ewens' grandson, William Messenger, inherited the estate.
The Messengers were never wealthy, and in 1676 William Messenger had to arrange mortgages on the estate in order to pay for his daughters' marriages. Other financial troubles led William to leave his family, and he died in Paris in 1680, leaving his three-year-old son, John Messenger, to inherit. He married Margaret Scrope in 1698, a year after he came of age, and around this time he began re-building works on Fountain Hall. He rented out areas of the former abbey, including the mill; 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.
In 1736, William's son Michael James married Elizabeth Sayer and took responsibility for the estate. He commissioned the first measured survey of the abbey in 1758. The family's financial position was declining and by 1765 Michael was selling oaks from the estate. Michael James died in 1766 and his son John Michael inherited. On 22 December 1767, John Michael sold the Fountains estate to William Aislabie for £18,000.
Studley estate development
From 1452 onwards, Studley Royal was inhabited by the Mallory family, most notably by MPs John Mallory and William Mallory. A depiction of the enclosed park first appeared on Christopher Saxton's 1577 map of Yorkshire. In 1607 John Mallory commissioned the first surviving survey of the estate. This listed land-holdings and it demonstrated that the estate formerly extended beyond the park. During the English Civil War, William Mallory and his son John, were loyal to the Crown; John commanded a force that defended Skipton Castle. They only surrendered in December 1645. William died in 1646 and John was fined by Parliament for half the value of the estate. Paying off the fine was attempted by selling off his wife's family estate, as well as other property, including a mill at Galphay and a farm at Nunwick. However, despite this, when John died in January 1656, and his son William inherited, aged only eight years old, debts had mounted up to £10,000. During this time it was John's widow, Mary, who managed the estate and managed to bring it within its means once more. However, in 1667, William died aged nineteen and the estate passed to his sisters: the eldest Mary, who was married to George Aislabie, as well as Jane and Elizabeth.
Aislabie was the son of a farmer from Osgodby in North Yorkshire. He worked as a clerk for William Turbutt in the church courts at York. As part of Turbutt's household, Aislabie inherited £200 at his death in November 1648. After Turbutt's death Aislabie remained as part of the household, working for the widowed Elizabeth Turbutt. There is a suggestion made by John Richard Walbran that the pair may have had a romantic attachment, but this is unproven. Nevertheless he was the primary beneficiary of Turbutt's will when she died in 1662 – a result of which he purchased Treasurer's House in York. It was around this time that he married Mary Mallorie. George was killed in a duel in 1676. It was George who began plans for the re-establishment of an enlarged park with Studley Royal in its centre. Studley Great Gate, now more commonly known as East Gate, the largest probable remnant of his plans.
George Aislabie's wife, Mary, preserved the estate, but by the time of her death in 1683 was in debt. Trustees to the estate were appointed until the heir, Mallorie Aislabie, came of age: William Robinson, husband of the eldest daughter Mary and Arthur Ingram. Mallorie died in 1685 and was succeeded as heir by his brother George, who inherited but then died in 1693. The third brother, John Aislabie inherited the Studley estate. A survey in 1694 describes both an 'old park' and a 'new park' which invites consideration of expansion under his father.
By 1695 John Aislabie was the Tory Member of Parliament for Ripon, and in 1718 became Chancellor of the Exchequer. This enabled some of the family's perhaps long held plans, to landscape the park, to begin. This included the construction of a tower on How Hill, and the canal and cascade that became the foundation of the Water Garden. Aislabie was a principal sponsor of the South Sea Company scheme, the bill for which was promoted by him personally. In 1720 this vast financial operation collapsed, and in 1721 he was expelled from Parliament and disqualified for life from public office. Stocks from the South Sea Company were grafted to the East India Company, of which his brother William was a director.
Development of the gardens
Aislabie returned to Yorkshire and from 1723 devoted himself to the landscaping of the estate. This included the construction of a boundary wall along the western side of the valley between the Fountains Abbey and Studley Royal estates. This wall had at least one viewing platform and connected to the path known as High Walk. Boundaries including ha-has were also constructed at this time. It is possible the design was influenced by his kinsman William Benson's knowledge of neo-Palladian design. 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. The design of the cascade and the fishing lodges is attributed to Roger Morris, who worked with Colen Campbell. The cascade and the canal was described in 1729 by Stephen Switzer in his volume of engineering, Hydrostatics. Aislabie and Morris's works did not just extend to the water gardens, but also to other areas of the estate. By 1728 work was also underway on the High Stables, which can still be seen in the deer park.
During the 1730s and 1740s, there were a number of head gardeners employed by Aislabie. William Fisher worked on the estate from at least 1717 to 1732, when he was paid off. He was followed by John Hossack (left 1738), Mathias Mitchell (dismissed 1742) and then James Lockey (died 1744). Another significant employee was Robert Doe, who was a builder, mason and later head gardener too. Doe later worked on building projects for Castle Howard and for Swinton Castle. This was also a period of expansion, during which Aislabie changed the lease on Mackershaw – making it permanent, rather than leased for agriculture. During this phase, the Grotto was constructed and changes were made to footpaths around its location; the Temple of Piety was also built.