FOUNTAINS ABBEY
A few miles south of Ripon the River Skell meanders around and through some of the most stately ruins in England. The Abbey was founded by Benedictine monks in 1132 but was taken over by Cistercians a couple of years later. I don’t know if the take-over was amicable; but whatever the case, they created something beautiful and peaceful on earth that even Henry VIII couldn’t destroy completely in the time of Dissolution.

The Chapel of Nine Altars is as awesome in ruins as most churches and cathedrals are the year they are built. An vaulting of the undercroft, the place where the monks stored their wool before it was cleaned and sold mostly to Venetian and Florentine merchants, is like an underground cathedral. THE UNDERCROFT