Episode Transcript
[00:00:21] Speaker A: The Tudor History and Travel show is a podcast that brings Tudor History to life by exploring Tudor places and artefacts in the flesh.
You will be travelling through time with Sarah Morris, the Tudor travel Guide, uncovering the stories behind some of the most amazing Tudor locations and objects in the uk.
Because when you visit a Tudor building, it is only time and not space which separates you from the past.
And now, over to your host, Sarah Morris.
[00:00:54] Speaker B: Welcome, dear listeners, wherever you are on planet Earth. You are tuning in to this month's episode of the Tudor History and Travel show with me, Sarah the Tudor travel guide and your host, as ever.
Now, shortly we'll be heading to our next destination, which is in the north of England, North Yorkshire. Somewhere where I, gosh, grew up almost as a child, visited regularly.
Lying just outside of the beautiful spa town of Harrogate is the gorgeous Fountains Abbey, one of the most magnificent of the Cistercian abbeys of North Yorkshire, which now lies, of course, thanks to Henry VIII and a certain Thomas Cromwell, in ruins, however, substantial ruins, with a wonderful story to tell, not only of the abbey itself, but also of the nearby Fountains hall, which I think in so many ways exemplifies what happened to some of the abbeys and the building structure after the dissolution.
Well, more fascinating stories to come very shortly.
But before we get there, I just wanted to note that we have just recently returned from our most recent tour over at Simply Tudor Tours, the Rise and Fall of Anne Boleyn, which we host on most years in September.
Another highly successful and enjoyable tour tour. And of course, on this particular tour, we had our giveaway winner from last year, lovely Susan and Tom from the us.
They had a wonderful time, I am pleased to say. And if you are following me, you may know that we have been running a giveaway this year for next year's tour in September.
And in case you were wondering, I am just in the process of contacting the winner. We think we have our winner, but we are just dotting the I's and crossing the t's before I make an announcement officially. And I say that of course, because I do get a lot of people emailing in, asking excitedly, what's going on? Oh, if only I could give away a tour place to all of you, my friends. But this year we had even more people enter than the year before. 14,000. Over 14,000 people enter the giveaway this year. And of course, there can only be one lucky winner. Anyway, more news to follow on my social media channel, on Instagram and via my email newsletter, which you can register for if you would like to follow all my adventures, you will find me on Instagram hetutortravelguide, of course. And if you go to my blog, www.thetutortravelguide.com, you can subscribe to my email newsletter on the homepage and that keeps you bang up to date with all my latest content.
Okay, that's all I have to say. In terms of housekeeping this month we can get straight on over with our travels in time.
So, as I mentioned, we are heading back to my home county of North Yorkshire in a place that is very, very close to my heart. I have so many happy memories that stretch back some, well, 40 years or so.
And we are lucky not to have one, but two guides who will join us today.
First of all, you will hear me talking with Paul Andrews, who will take us on a tour of the abbey. I learned so much. It was so thoroughly, thoroughly enjoyable. I hope you get as much out
[00:04:33] Speaker C: of it as I did.
[00:04:34] Speaker B: And then we also link up with Helen Forbert, who will take us on a tour of Fountains hall to complete our story today.
Okay, so, well, let's buckle up as ever and let's go time traveling.
[00:04:50] Speaker C: Welcome, dear listeners, to this current episode of the Tudor History and Travel Show. And you find me at a place which is extremely close to my heart. And in fact, my history with this location, Fountains Abbey in North Yorkshire, goes back well over 50 years. I've been coming here since I was knee high to a grasshopper with my parents. So this place is infused with very happy family memories for me across several decades now. So it's a real thrill actually to be able to be back in my home county of North Yorkshire and to be coming back to this lovely venue to explore its history in some detail.
And in fact, today there's a tale of two parts. We're going to be exploring the abbey first and foremost, its history and of course, the impact of the dissolution. And in fact, in the second part of this recording, we'll be going just, I don't know, quarter of a mile down, down the drive to Fountains hall, which, as you will hear, arose from the ruins of the abbey. And I think it illustrates perfectly the story of what happened to some of these great buildings after the dissolution.
So anyway, let's get on with part one and I have our expert guide here with me today. Paul. Hello, Paul. Welcome.
[00:06:14] Speaker A: Thank you, Sarah.
[00:06:16] Speaker C: Thank you so much for being our guide here today at this wonderful location.
Listeners who follow the show will know that in age old tradition, I'd love you to Introduce yourself and your relationship to the abbey.
[00:06:30] Speaker A: Okay. Well, my name is Paul Andrews. I'm a professor of mathematics education. I currently work in Denmark, but I have a lifelong love of this place, and I work part time. I live in North Yorkshire, and the opportunity to come here and work as a volunteer and as a guide just seemed too good to miss. So I've been volunteering, volunteering here four years.
I think this is one of the most remarkable places in England, and I defy any visitor to say otherwise, but I'd like to just put us in the location.
[00:07:05] Speaker C: Please do.
[00:07:05] Speaker A: Yes, please do say something of how we come to be here and how the monks came to be here. And to do that, I just want to go back to 1098.
And in 1098, a group of Benedictine monks in Burgundy and France were dissatisfied with the way of life they had. They thought they were living too comfortably. They thought they were eating too well and drinking too much quality wine. And frankly, in Burgundy, why wouldn't you?
And they set off to found a new monastery to embrace a harder life. And this new monastery was in a location that the French called Citeaux, which in Latin was Cistercium.
And this was the mother house of all Cistercian monasteries that came out of that.
[00:07:51] Speaker C: Can I just ask a quick question? Because obviously people who have. Know anything about history will know there were different monastic houses.
And here we are at perhaps one of the greatest Cistercian houses in England.
[00:08:03] Speaker D: And.
[00:08:03] Speaker C: And we'll perhaps describe what we can see in. In a moment, but maybe you could just tell us what was a cistern Cistercian monk, and maybe how did it differ from some of the other religious orders?
[00:08:13] Speaker A: So, okay, so in its early days, it was an attempt to return to a very serious monastic basic. They wanted to live a hard life. They wanted to demonstrate to God that they were sacrificing all worldly pleasures for him in order to guarantee essentially their place in heaven. So in its earliest days, the monks would be living on a strict vegetarian diet that might have been supplemented with some ale, but ultimately, it was a very, very strict vegetarian diet. In winter, there was one meal a day. In summer, there were two.
They were sleeping collectively in one large room. This large room was never heated. In fact, there was nowhere that would provide them with bodily warmth during their working or sleeping hours. Life was meant to be hard. And as we go around the abbey, you can see the evidence of that hardship.
[00:09:05] Speaker C: Now, I was saying thank you. Thank you for that. I was saying that there are a few other orders can you just give us a quick contrast of maybe how the Cistercian life measured up to, say, the Benedictines or the Carthusians?
[00:09:20] Speaker A: Okay, is it. I'm going to distinguish between monks and canons because.
Because people assume they're the same. So all people call Augustinian, pre monstrotensian. They were what were called canons and they were priests living collectively but going out and ministering. But they were coming home at night.
Monks. Yep. Carthusian, Cistercian, Benedictine. They lived as closed communities, but their ambitions were different.
Benedictines typically built their monasteries in urban locations and they were, and they saw it, part of their remit to build hospitals and schools and to, to facilitate the well being of those living around them.
The Cistercian goal was entirely different.
All their monasteries are in remote locations, or at least at that time they were remote locations with the sole objective of separating themselves from the rest of mankind. They wanted nothing to do with the outside world.
And that led essentially to a form of monastic economy that separated the Cistercians very much from the Benedictines.
In order to allow the monks here to live within this house and never go out, they had to find a way of managing their land, producing the food and so on. And that became what were called the lay brothers.
So we have two communities living here. We have the choir monks. Choir monks by definition were literate and had to read and write Latin. So when they came here in 1132, the only people who could read and write Latin would have been sons of noblemen.
So the monks in 1132 typically were noble, Norman, French speaking.
The lay brothers, by definition were illiterate. But they had to have a trade or a skill or a craft that could be put to the benefit of the whole community.
For example, to this, to the south of us, there are the ruins of a bakehouse and a brewery that would have been managed and run by lay brothers. To the west of us, behind some trees, there's the old Fountains mill, built in 1140, still working as a mill in 1924.
That would have been managed by lay brothers. But also Fountains had tens of thousands of acres of land, many thousands of sheep.
All of that would have been managed by lay brothers working on behalf of the abbey. And there were mines. We had fountains, had lead mines that provided a huge income.
[00:11:57] Speaker C: You know, you just made me think of something because you just said they had ten thousands acres, yet these few monks pitch up here. So somebody must have given them that land.
So who generally tended to give the land and why?
[00:12:12] Speaker A: The short answer is Imagine you are a nobleman, perhaps you've already fought in a crude crusade somewhere and you know you've killed people and you have a certain degree of guilt over that.
How do you appease that guilt? How do you appease God? You give land or money to places like this. And because the Cistercians were new to the country and because they were demonstrably living this really hard life, they attracted benefactors in spades.
What we see to the east of us is this huge building funded by wealthy noblemen alongside all the land they've donated.
And of course that wealth paid for the construction.
[00:12:57] Speaker C: And who were the wealthy noblemen in this particular area at that time?
[00:13:02] Speaker A: There were families called Mowbray, the Percies from Northumberland.
All of the, all the names you probably know from your own, your early histories, all of them were regular donors to these sorts of places.
[00:13:13] Speaker C: Because it's interesting, isn't it, because you think of the Percy's and their seat is up in Anick, which is miles away, but they, they were huge northern families. So that it just shows how, how far their tentacles of influence, money and power reached.
[00:13:27] Speaker D: Yes.
[00:13:28] Speaker C: Now, okay, so we, let's, let's do a little bit of describing where we are. We're in the county of North Yorkshire, which is in what would consider the north of England, I think, and I think you'd agree with one of the finest counties, if you want to come and see. Well, finest county is full stop. I mean it's, you know, God's, God's county, isn't it?
But for seeing monastic ruins, it's, it's one of the finest counties, would you agree?
[00:13:52] Speaker A: In England it is absolutely the finest county for monastic ruins. And the, the problem with that is people assume because there are so many ruins that there were more settlements here than anywhere else. Now there is absolutely no, no evidence of that in the documentation. The, the monasteries were distributed roughly equally all across the country, except in the very high land.
What we have here, I think is, remains as a consequence of too few people choosing to quarry them.
[00:14:24] Speaker C: I see.
That's really interesting because I had wondered why there was such a smorgasbord of fantastic monastic ruins. And I guess we'll touch on that towards the end of our conversation and in part two. But that's really interesting.
[00:14:38] Speaker A: There is also a sense that some of the early purchases of these places after the Reformation were Catholic sympathizers and were reluctant to tear them down.
And of course there was a, there was a hope, particularly during the time of Mary Tudor that Catholicism might return and the abbeys might reopen. So what we have remaining is a consequence of all sorts of factors, but principally I think it's a consequence of their having few people quarrying them. For example, the first people who bought fountains after the Reformation were utterly uninterested in the abbey. All they wanted were the lead mines. It was an economic transaction to do with what they could get out of the hillside.
[00:15:21] Speaker C: Very, very interesting. Okay, thank you so much for that. So we've described where we are in terms of where we are in England, but physically where we are now is in a very pleasant valley. And it's still a very beautiful and pleasant valley to this day. You can clearly see why somebody might have chosen this place. But you've also brought me next to the river and I suspect that had something to do with it as well.
[00:15:44] Speaker A: Absolutely. When, when the monks came here according to their narrative, and of course, we have to treat their narrative with a degree of circumspection.
This was a steep sided bramble, nettle filled, nettle filled valley that was utter, utterly inhospitable.
And they spent their first winter living under an elm tree. They say now within a few years, they started to sort of create a site on which they could build. And of course, what that meant was the river that once upon a time. Once upon a time ran down the middle of the valley was ultimately diverted around to the south to create the plain on which fountains now stands.
The other thing to say is when they came here, the cliff to the north of us must have come a long way further south because everything we see apart from the tower came out of that cliff. Okay, so that must have come a long way further south. So the valley today is utterly unlike the valley the monks found.
[00:16:48] Speaker C: Yeah, it's really fascinating. I mean, it's quite obvious. It's quite obvious now you point it out, that it would be carved from the stone directly next to the building where the building was. I'd never, in all the years of coming here, I'd never really made that connection.
Anyway, thank you for that.
Look, so what I want to do is a couple of things here today. I want us to tell the story of the monks who lived here and how the abbey was raised from the ground, who did that, and what the everyday life of a monk was like here at Fountains. And I'd also like us, as we're going around, to point out some of the spaces because one of the things I do know about abbeys is that by and large, they were all built according to a set plan, particularly with regards to the different houses, largely speaking. So I think if you do roughly know what you're looking for, even if you end up exploring a load of rooms, you've got some idea of, of whether this might be a chapter house or whether this might have been the old kitchen, for example. So I want you to help us. Okay. Teach people how to read an abbey today as well. So that's one of our. And I do happen to know you have a very specialist interest in something that fascinates me, which is apotropoe, Marks and builders. Marks for which you've been doing a two year project.
[00:18:08] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:18:09] Speaker C: So you're going to help us.
[00:18:10] Speaker D: You're going to.
[00:18:10] Speaker C: You're going to introduce us to some of that along the way. So there's lots of ground to cover. So where do we need to go from here to talk about how this abbey was built and by whom?
[00:18:21] Speaker A: Okay.
That initial story, we can just stay here for that.
[00:18:26] Speaker C: Okay.
[00:18:26] Speaker A: Okay.
The first monks who came here were Benedictines.
And they were Benedictines who had left York because they too had become dissatisfied with their way of life.
This dissatisfaction was exacerbated by Cistercian monks passing through York on the way to Found Revo.
And they saw these new monks, they saw their new way of life and they thought, we want to be like them. So there was a rebellion in York and the archbishop, in an attempt to quell that rebellion, gave this plot to 12 monks and a new abbot.
So 1132 was the foundation of monks coming here.
[00:19:10] Speaker C: Right. Okay. And so they arrived here and literally I'm thinking, how did they logistically turn an overgrown, bramble ridden, narrow, steep sided valley into this magnificent. And we can turn around and have a look at the ruins of fountains, which are significant. And this is a good point for me to say, dear listeners, that as ever, there is a show notes page associated with this podcast and we'll be putting lots of pictures in there of the things that we're talking about today.
Maybe actually first of all, you could describe what we can see and then maybe you can address my question as to how on earth they went about creating this building.
[00:19:54] Speaker A: Okay. From what, what we see in front of us right now is a very, very long single story building that was once two story.
And the top of this two story building is now long since disappeared. And that single long building was the lay brothers home.
And they would have slept on the first floor and they would have eaten to the south, on the south side and on the north side would have been storerooms and offices. So that was a very, very much a utilitarian space.
But we can also see the west end of the church.
And it's one of the largest monastic churches in England, and it's comparable in its size and scale to many cathedrals.
[00:20:33] Speaker C: So one of the other things that really strikes a visitor, I think, is the tower that survives. Hubie's tower. Is that what it's called?
[00:20:39] Speaker A: It's called Hub Tower because it was built by an Albert called Marmaduke huby in around 1500, finishing around 1510.
[00:20:47] Speaker C: So we've got a bit of Tudor History there. And you, when you come down from the visitor center, that's what you can see peeking up above the valley. It's only when you actually come right the way down into the valley that the. The vista opens up and you see the true glory of the. The abbey.
[00:21:02] Speaker A: And as you walk down the. From the visitor center and you look at the tower, the tower gives you no indication of the scale of.
[00:21:09] Speaker C: No, not at all. And we can only see just one facade of it at the moment. We're going to dive in there in the moment. But let's. Let's walk forward and perhaps you could explain to us how this building, you know, how it. Logistically, how did it come about?
[00:21:24] Speaker A: The first. The first couple of years, the monks themselves would have used timber to build early rooms, early buildings.
They would have had an early church, early. Early restaurants, restaurant. Early early refectory or a restaurant.
[00:21:45] Speaker C: You know, we know what you mean.
[00:21:47] Speaker A: Yeah.
And those. There is evidence, or there was evidence of those early buildings in the south transept, recently uncovered in the 1990s.
But as they acquired more money and as the lay brother movement took off, there was a move to start building in stone.
But the first serious stone building wasn't until the mid to late 1140s.
And the first complete, if you like, monastic settlement was completed, I think, in about 1146.
[00:22:18] Speaker C: So what kind of workforce had to be drawn together to build this monastery? And who were they? Were they local craftspeople? Were they the lay brothers who did it?
[00:22:30] Speaker A: The, the. Okay. The, the main. The main abbey as we see it today was overseen by a man from France who had helped construct an abbey over there and had so a master mason who knew and understood how you built these places, because they were all built to roughly the similar plan, but they were all built without a written plan.
The construction was managed by probably several thousand paid workers.
And we don't know precisely how this was managed because the written Records don't exist, but the logic says they were probably working in teams. And that team would have included men on the hillside cutting the stone, quarrying the stone, men cutting the stone, men transporting the stone, men preparing it for setting, men setting, and so on. Teams of men involved in the building of certain parts.
[00:23:25] Speaker C: I see.
[00:23:26] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:23:26] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:23:26] Speaker C: And thank you for reminding me about the master mason, because there was always a. A master mason responsible, overseeing the project, I guess, and carrying that knowledge with them from place to place.
How long did it take to build this?
[00:23:41] Speaker A: If we ignore the tower? Yeah, pretty well. Every. Everything we see around us now was built between about 1150 and 1200, maybe even as early as 1190.
So a very, very short period of time.
[00:23:53] Speaker C: Not yet, not long at all for a building of this scale. That's quite incredible. So we're standing just outside. We've come forward. We're standing just outside the Lay Brothers building.
I'd love to go in and start exploring some of the spaces, talking about the life of a monk. And as I said to you, perhaps you could help us read some of the spaces and know what we're looking at if we. If we go on travels by ourselves. So where do we need to go? I'm in your hands.
[00:24:17] Speaker A: Okay. So we're going to go into the. Into. Into the Lady Brothers home, which is called the solarium, which confuses visitors because they assume it just means cellar. Yes. And to a certain extent, there's elements of truth in that. But the principal function of this building is that it's the lay brothers refectory.
So the whole of this south side of this long, long range was the Ley brothers refectory.
[00:27:51] Speaker C: We should pause and just sort of. People will hear that the acoustics have changed. We are in. In a largely enclosed building. There are no doors or windows, but the. The building is intact. And I think it's one of the most stunning parts. I remember when I very first saw this as a child going, wow. And I think it's a. It's beautiful, isn't it, in its construction? Perhaps you could give a little bit more description as to what we can actually see.
[00:28:16] Speaker A: Yeah, well, first of all, one of the joys of being a guide here is giving visitors that wow moment because it is an exceptional space.
[00:28:24] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:28:25] Speaker A: Best part of 100 meters long. It's 22 bays, all of which are supported on wonderfully sort of constructed rib vaults.
And it's a mass of marks.
[00:28:38] Speaker C: Is it? So maybe this is where we should introduce your project. Tell us about what you've been working on over the last couple of years and we can weave that into our story as we go.
[00:28:49] Speaker A: Purely serendipitously, I noticed some marks on one of the walls and assumed they were just conventional mason's marks. You know what the lift literature tells us our banker marks, the illiterate man's invoice claims for payment.
[00:29:04] Speaker C: So literally, they would literally mark the stones that they'd carved and then they would know that we're going to be paid for that stone.
[00:29:12] Speaker A: Yeah, I did this, now pay me.
[00:29:13] Speaker C: Yeah, fine.
[00:29:14] Speaker B: Great.
[00:29:14] Speaker C: Okay.
[00:29:15] Speaker A: Now, what's really interesting is, despite the fact we found upwards of a thousand marks, very few of those show signs of being what you might call a banker mark.
The form that they take and the locations suggests they are more likely to be apotropaic, more likely to be appeals for protection.
[00:29:38] Speaker C: So I must just pause and just say, for those of you listening who are regular followers of the show, you'll know that a few episodes back, we visited Horton Tower in Lancashire, where we did quite a lot on apotroplate marks. But this was in a secular home, a private home we're now in. In a religious building. So I'm fascinated to see some of these marks here. And you started to survey them.
[00:30:01] Speaker A: Yep.
[00:30:02] Speaker C: So tell us about that and what the, you know, the extent of that survey and what you started to find.
[00:30:09] Speaker A: So initially, I've taken photographs of every wall. I print off those photographs and then on at least two, possibly three occasions, I examine those walls under various lights, natural light, artificial light, because light is so important, so many marks remain hidden unless you've got the light to expose them.
And so I then, having found a mark, I make a note on the photograph, I make a picture in a notebook, I take a photograph, and then I put all these into a database when I get home.
[00:30:47] Speaker C: And how many of you, how many marks, first of all, how many marks have you found so far in this building?
Okay.
[00:30:53] Speaker A: But of course, we have probably lost more than there are still here because
[00:30:59] Speaker C: literally the stone crumbles away. And all those marks are just on the sort of plaster, aren't they? So if that kind of goes. You lose the mark.
[00:31:06] Speaker A: Yeah. And in here, for example, we've got massive evidence of erosion of the surface. But. But we also have evidence of calcification where rain has come in over. Over centuries and deposited a layer of stuff. Just like, you know, you get in caves now. This is.
[00:31:22] Speaker C: Yeah, I see that now. So before we. Before we go to an.
Can you show me a mason's mark so that we can see what a typical mason's mark might look like
[00:31:34] Speaker A: in here. Probably not, but I can show you some lovely apotropaic.
[00:31:37] Speaker C: Okay, let's see.
Do it the other way around then. So let's start with your potter paint, Marc, and you can tell me. Show me a few.
We'll take a few photos and we'll put them on.
[00:31:47] Speaker A: Okay. Let's see if it works today.
Can you see?
[00:31:54] Speaker C: Yes, I can see it's.
[00:31:57] Speaker A: It's like a cross of St. Andrew with two verticals.
[00:32:00] Speaker C: Yes.
[00:32:01] Speaker A: What people call that the butterfly cross.
[00:32:05] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:32:06] Speaker A: And there's another one on there.
[00:32:09] Speaker C: So why do you think that's not a mason's mark?
[00:32:14] Speaker A: Number of reasons. The literature says it could well be linked to a Scandinavian rune called dargaz, which refers to light as the triumph of light over darkness.
I have an additional hypothesis.
If you look at the top half, I have an M.
Does that make sense?
[00:32:41] Speaker C: Yes. Yeah.
[00:32:42] Speaker A: If I look at the bottom half, I have two V's.
All Cistercian abbeys were dedicated to the Virgin Mary.
So we have lots of what you might call Marian marks. And typical Marion mark would be the vvs. Yeah, and there's vvs everywhere. And I think this is possibly just a variant of that.
[00:33:04] Speaker C: I see.
[00:33:05] Speaker A: So those two are variants of that.
[00:33:07] Speaker C: And we. We should get very clear for those people who don't know what an apotropate mark actually is there for an aparthrope
[00:33:16] Speaker A: mark is designed to invoke the good spirits, to rid the place of evil spirits. So this is an appeal, we think, possibly an appeal to Mary.
This here. Look at that five pointed star. A pentagram.
The pentagram is a long standing Apocrypha symbol. And the story is it goes back to Solomon. God gave Solomon a ring and on this ring was a five pointed star. And this five pointed star gave him power over demons. I see, so Solomon had power over demons. This is designed to rid the place of demons. Why would I have them on the rib vaults? Because where would demons be hiding?
[00:34:02] Speaker C: Here in the roof?
[00:34:03] Speaker A: Yeah, they'd be hiding up there waiting to pounce. And we're talking about communities of men who, despite being deeply religious, were also deeply terrified of spirits. The devil and his army was real. Was real and everywhere.
[00:34:18] Speaker C: Yeah, it's. Yeah. I mean, that's. You've just sewn us sort of three marks on the same rib vault. So. Wow.
[00:34:26] Speaker A: In fact, on that I've got those two butterfly crosses and three five pointed stars. But I'll show You another one which I think is even more. Please, I think even more conclusive.
[00:34:35] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:34:36] Speaker A: And that's over this way.
[00:34:36] Speaker C: Right, let's. Let's walk down the solarium.
[00:34:40] Speaker A: You called it the solarium. And at this end, whereas we walked to the north, there would have been storerooms and there would have been offices.
And the space we see today, which is huge, would never have been seen by a labour other who lived or worked here.
[00:34:57] Speaker C: Because it was divided up.
[00:34:58] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:34:59] Speaker A: Which is why we have all these doorways.
[00:35:01] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:35:01] Speaker A: So this doorway would have come into this area, that doorway would have come into that area and it would all have been divided up in various ways.
[00:35:08] Speaker C: Yes.
[00:35:09] Speaker A: So nobody would have seen.
So we'll go over here and one of the things you find with looking for a potter or any mason's mark is you have to go into the dark corners.
[00:35:24] Speaker C: And we are in the darkest corner of this solarium.
[00:35:29] Speaker A: So, yeah, this is one of the very earliest walls built in the abbey. This is probably about 11, 745.
So this is one of the very earliest doorways. And at some point it was blocked. I don't know when it was blocked, but I do know we have this,
[00:35:45] Speaker B: huh?
[00:35:46] Speaker C: Yeah. So that's like a cross.
[00:35:49] Speaker A: This is a cross, Yep.
[00:35:51] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:35:51] Speaker A: Now crosses are well known apotropaic symbols because their appeals to Jesus in all sorts. In all sorts of ways.
[00:35:57] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:35:58] Speaker A: And that can be interpreted not only as a cross, but it's actually two eyes intersecting.
[00:36:06] Speaker C: Oh, I see what you mean.
[00:36:07] Speaker A: Yes. You can see the. You can see.
[00:36:08] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:36:09] Speaker D: Because it's got.
[00:36:09] Speaker C: The crosses have an end each. Yeah, each bar has an end on it, doesn't it? Yeah.
[00:36:15] Speaker A: So technically now I have two intersecting eyes.
[00:36:17] Speaker C: Yes.
[00:36:18] Speaker A: In the form of an X.
Yeah. So that's Jesus Christ in Latin.
[00:36:23] Speaker C: Yeah, Sorry. A doorway, which is a very technical. A very classic place, isn't it?
[00:36:29] Speaker A: Yeah. And also around here, this is here is a staircase.
This is this. We're beneath the stair from the lay brothers dormitory down into the church.
[00:36:40] Speaker C: Yes.
[00:36:41] Speaker A: And I've got very crude marks, some more, but some also very nice.
[00:36:48] Speaker C: Yes, the pentagram.
[00:36:50] Speaker A: All of these we think are here to protect this space underneath the stairs because another.
[00:36:58] Speaker C: Another place for demons to hide would be in dark places under stairs. Yes. And I can see another one. I can see your two eyes again.
[00:37:05] Speaker B: Gosh.
[00:37:05] Speaker C: Once you start looking, they're everywhere, aren't they?
[00:37:07] Speaker A: Now be careful.
[00:37:11] Speaker C: You know what it like to get sucked down that particular rabbit hole.
[00:37:15] Speaker A: So. And just here, for example, a doorway.
But look at this?
[00:37:21] Speaker C: Yes. Oh, that's a bv, isn't it?
[00:37:23] Speaker A: A lovely vv.
[00:37:24] Speaker C: That's a beautiful vv. Yes.
[00:37:27] Speaker A: And the key thing is in the next shape you get people saying these, this. These are just standard banker marks.
These are repeated everywhere around these sorts of spaces. And I think. I just think these sorts of marks are just too commonly occurring to be anything other than. Than an appeal to some spirit to protect the place from deep. From evil.
[00:37:50] Speaker C: So what you're. I mean, from what you're saying there, there can be some debate about whether something is an apotropic mark or a maker's mark. Sometimes it's not completely clear cut, but there are some that appear more commonly as apotropaic marks like the pentagrams, daisy wheels, the vvs and that they are in certain places like doorways, windows, fireplaces, dark corners.
So can you show us a mason's mark then? Is there one nearby here that we might look at for comparison?
[00:38:26] Speaker A: Yes, I think.
[00:38:36] Speaker C: So, yes.
[00:38:37] Speaker A: On these columns here we've got a large number of fairly large arrows.
[00:38:45] Speaker C: Arrows. Arrows, yeah, yeah.
[00:38:48] Speaker A: Another one here.
[00:38:48] Speaker D: Arrows.
[00:38:49] Speaker C: There's one there.
[00:38:51] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:38:51] Speaker C: They're all over the place.
[00:38:53] Speaker A: There's more on here.
And the direct. They have. They're in different directions. Yes, but they're big compared to all the other marks we find, they're quite large.
[00:39:04] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:39:05] Speaker A: Oh, that's apotropaic.
[00:39:07] Speaker C: What's that one? Oh, that. Is that a VV again?
[00:39:09] Speaker A: No.
[00:39:10] Speaker C: What's that one?
[00:39:11] Speaker A: I think the easiest thing is if I show you.
[00:39:16] Speaker C: So what's that? So we're going to take a picture of that. So that. What do you. What do you call it?
[00:39:21] Speaker A: I think that's a very stylized capital alpha.
[00:39:28] Speaker C: Yeah. It's quite fancy for a mason's mark, isn't it?
[00:39:30] Speaker A: Now why do I think that's a stylized alpha?
[00:39:33] Speaker D: Yeah.
[00:39:33] Speaker A: In Durham Cathedral in the museum, there is this fantastic 10th century grave slab.
[00:39:39] Speaker C: Oh, yeah. Along there it is in the top
[00:39:41] Speaker A: left, Alpha and the Omega. Jesus.
[00:39:43] Speaker C: Yeah. The alpha, the Omega, the beginning and the end.
[00:39:45] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:39:46] Speaker C: How interesting.
[00:39:47] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:39:48] Speaker C: And I suppose from a mason's mark point of view, you want something that's really simple and easy and quick because you don't want to be sending your time chiseling away a nice fancy diagram when you can do a quick arrow.
[00:39:59] Speaker A: Exactly.
[00:40:00] Speaker C: And that is that time is money.
[00:40:02] Speaker A: Exactly. And that is well cut.
[00:40:04] Speaker C: Yeah. Good. Right. Okay.
That's excellent. That was. That's fascinating. You know what, I've been coming here for 50 years and I've never noticed any of these.
[00:40:12] Speaker A: Why is that mark there? Yeah, because not many of these columns have got a Potomac marks on them. Look behind this wall here, the north wall of the nave.
[00:40:21] Speaker C: It's a blocked up doorway.
[00:40:23] Speaker A: It's a blocked up doorway. And that doorway was big enough for a cart to come through because that was part of the construction.
This is, this is put there so they could bring the stone into the
[00:40:33] Speaker C: church and then just blocked up at the end, and then it's blocked up
[00:40:35] Speaker A: at the end and of course then plastered, lime, washed, and you never noticed it was there.
[00:40:39] Speaker C: So fascinating.
[00:40:41] Speaker A: Is this a mark to protect the space as parts come in?
[00:40:46] Speaker C: Well, when we say the space, I think we should return to our story of the building, if that's okay, Paul.
[00:40:52] Speaker A: So let's go back into.
And then through into the cloister.
[00:40:56] Speaker C: Okay.
[00:41:45] Speaker D: All.
[00:42:10] Speaker A: Mira.
[00:42:34] Speaker C: So we were talking about the lay brothers. So what's an everyday life of a lay brother like? I guess it depended on what their task was and of course.
[00:42:41] Speaker A: Yeah, it depends on the jobs that they have. And of course, many of them wouldn't even live here because so much of fountains, agricultural and other activity would be out in the dales. Say they would live in what were called granges.
[00:42:58] Speaker C: Right.
[00:42:59] Speaker A: And a grange was essentially a monastic farmstead that would have had all you would have needed. So it would have had a small chapel perhaps. It would have had the accommodation and cooking facilities. But many lay brothers would live their lives out there because they can't get back here.
[00:43:17] Speaker C: Yes.
[00:43:17] Speaker A: It's just too far.
So probably only half the lay brother communities lived here and the rest were out working.
[00:43:24] Speaker C: I see. That's really interesting.
[00:43:26] Speaker A: And of course, their days would be. Would be utterly dependent on the time of year.
In winter, their days would have been relatively short because they're not, they're not working in the dark.
Of course, some of their days would have been very long.
[00:43:39] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah.
[00:43:41] Speaker A: But most of them were involved in some sort of agricultural activity.
[00:43:46] Speaker C: Did they do. Did they participate in any way in the services? Did they come into, you know, the sort of the. The nave of the church when the monks were in the choir, or did they just work all day?
[00:43:59] Speaker A: Those who were here would have come into the church for two services a day, essentially the first and the last.
[00:44:04] Speaker C: Right.
[00:44:06] Speaker A: That just.
[00:44:07] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:44:08] Speaker A: Allowed them to get offended of the day.
The rest of the times they would hear a bell and they would pause and just say a prayer. And in the fields they would hear a bell and pause to say a prayer. But essentially their Days were spent in work and their days were spent in work in order to. That the monks could spend their days in prayer.
[00:44:28] Speaker C: Right.
[00:44:28] Speaker A: Yeah, that's a gross simplification, but in reality that's probably what happened.
[00:44:34] Speaker C: And you brought me into the beautiful cloister here.
Maybe again we could start with just a description of what. What we can see before we go and explore the next area.
[00:44:45] Speaker A: Okay. Imagine before we do, the door behind us is closed.
[00:44:48] Speaker C: Yes.
[00:44:49] Speaker A: We've shut out all the noise, all the activity, all the work.
[00:44:53] Speaker C: Yes.
[00:44:54] Speaker A: To create this space of tranquility because this is where the choir monks lived and worked.
And although it's no longer here, this, the cloister, which is essentially square and surrounded by the monastic buildings, there would have been a wall, an arcade wall running around all four sides that would have supported a roof above where we're standing.
[00:45:15] Speaker C: Yes.
[00:45:16] Speaker A: Yeah. Like all cloisters, like, like cathedrals today, the cloister would have been just the same.
And it's a space where monks would have spent time in individual contemplation and prayer. It's where the novice monks probably would have had their lessons.
But it's just meant to be a space of tranquility and devoid of interruption.
And this is the whole Cistercian model that once the monks are in here, there is intended to be no distraction.
[00:45:45] Speaker C: Oh, it sounds blissful.
When can I sign up?
[00:45:49] Speaker A: I think I'd go crazy.
[00:45:51] Speaker C: I'd love it.
[00:45:52] Speaker A: The days would have been so repetitive.
[00:45:54] Speaker D: I'd love it.
[00:45:56] Speaker C: I love a good structure and peace and quiet.
[00:46:00] Speaker A: I'm an autistic nerd and I couldn't do it.
[00:46:04] Speaker C: I often think the part of me should go and sign up to become some into a religious order. I'm not sure my husband be very happy about that, but there you go. Maybe you would.
Chris is laughing behind me.
[00:46:17] Speaker A: So we're on. We're now in the heart of the home of the climax.
[00:46:21] Speaker D: You've.
[00:46:21] Speaker C: You've beautifully evoked the sense of this being the heart of their tranquility and simplicity of their working day.
[00:46:30] Speaker A: Yep.
[00:46:31] Speaker C: And you're taking me towards.
[00:46:33] Speaker A: I'm taking you towards the kitchen.
[00:46:35] Speaker C: Okay, now there's a. There's a speech feature on the left hand side.
[00:46:40] Speaker A: Yep.
[00:46:41] Speaker C: Perhaps you could. Because anybody who goes to any cloisters, and I mean, Gloucester Cathedral, fantastic example of an intact version of what Paul is about to talk to us about.
But what's here.
[00:46:55] Speaker A: Okay. So this is called the lavatorium, which really confuses many visitors because the modern interpretation of that would. Would be as you would expect, however, before we describe that, it's important to say all the toilets are on the south side, directly over the river.
Because by design, the Cistercians had to have a source of flowing water over which they always built their toilets.
And strict instructions, only solids, please in the water, liquids in a jar at the side. Because urine is collected either for agricultural purposes or. Or, of course, taken downstream to the tannery. Because urine is a key ingredient in leather making excellent recycling. So this is not a toilet, this is a washroom.
And originally there would have been. You can. You can almost see a trough running at the bottom of this space.
There would have been, we think, a pewter lining. There would have been running water. Running water come coming down from the hillside where there were springs and that was piped down. And here the monks would have washed their hands and faces before every meal.
But also it has a very important symbolic function, and that is, every week, all the choir monks were invited to sit here. You can see it's a bench.
It looks like a bench and it is a bench.
[00:48:15] Speaker C: Can I sit on it?
[00:48:16] Speaker A: Yes, of course you can.
[00:48:18] Speaker C: There you go. I never thought you could sit up here.
[00:48:22] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:48:22] Speaker C: And so this was for what's called the mandatum.
[00:48:25] Speaker A: And every week, someone, usually one of the highest ranking monks, would wash, dry
[00:48:32] Speaker C: and kiss your feet in a similar act of Christ.
[00:48:37] Speaker A: This is exactly mirroring Christ washing his disciples feet before the Last Supper.
[00:48:42] Speaker C: Yes.
[00:48:42] Speaker A: But also to remind us all that even the greatest amongst us, the abbot or whoever is washing your feet is as the lowest.
[00:48:50] Speaker C: Yes, yeah. Act of humility.
[00:48:53] Speaker A: It's a massive act of humility and it's a really important symbolic part of the monk's week.
[00:48:58] Speaker C: Well, there you are.
[00:48:59] Speaker A: And it's still there. The bench is there all the way down pretty well. Yeah.
[00:49:02] Speaker C: It's fantastic. How many monks were here at the. The height of the abbey?
[00:49:05] Speaker A: I don't think we know precisely.
Figures vary between 100 and 120.
And by the dissolution, there's probably no more than about 30. 30. I think it's 32.
[00:49:16] Speaker C: Right. Okay. So where do we need to go? You were taking me to the kitchens.
[00:49:20] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:49:23] Speaker C: So this is the south side.
[00:49:27] Speaker A: This is the south side of the cloister.
[00:49:29] Speaker C: And would that be where you would usually find the lavatorium and the refractory area?
[00:49:36] Speaker A: Yes. Now, in all Cistercian abbeys, and this is important because this is Cistercian, what we see here, the footprint will be exactly the same.
So standing in the cloister, if I stand here, with my back to the lavatorium. Behind me will be the kitchen on one side and the monk's refectory on the other.
Beyond the monk's refectory is always what is called the warming room.
And then we turn a corner and we always have the same sequence of rooms. We have what's called the parlour.
It's the only place where you can have a conversation.
Cistercians were silent, and apart from speech related to their formal activities, that's the only place you can talk informally.
Next to that is the chapter house, and I'll say a bit more about that later. Beyond that is what's called the sacristy, which takes us up to the church.
[00:50:26] Speaker C: Fantastic. Always the same in a Cistercian.
[00:50:29] Speaker A: In a Cistercian. And on this west side is always the lay brothers range.
[00:50:34] Speaker D: Right.
[00:50:35] Speaker A: However they like to build it. So this is all on the south side of the church. But if you go to Tinton, if you go to build was.
And probably a few more, but those are the two I can remember. It's all reflected because of the geography where they were building. It made more sense to build on the north side.
[00:50:56] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:50:57] Speaker A: And it is so confusing.
[00:51:00] Speaker C: So back to front.
[00:51:01] Speaker A: It's all back to front.
[00:51:02] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:51:03] Speaker A: Everything is just a reflection across the axis of the church.
[00:51:06] Speaker C: Right.
Okay, so let's go through this lovely rounded, slightly arched, but mostly rounded doorway into the kitchen area. Obviously next to the refractory. Makes a lot of sense. What are we seeing here?
[00:51:19] Speaker A: So importantly, next to the refectory, that way.
There was also a doorway here at some point that went through into the lay brothers refectory.
So the kitchen is always placed between the two refectories.
[00:51:30] Speaker C: Yeah, makes a lot of sense.
[00:51:32] Speaker A: And we're standing in the middle of what would have been just a fireplace. There were two fireplaces we know of in the center here.
And this is where, at least in the early days, they would have prepared their relentlessly dull vegetarian stew.
And that's basically all that happens in here, because we know where the bread is made. The bread is made at a bakery over. Over the back. The ale is brewed in a brewery over the back. They're not allowed meat at this point. They're not allowed fish, they're not allowed dairy. So all we get in here is vegetables, too. You've watched Black, you've watched Blackadder. You know Baldrick, of course, you know Baldrick's favorite food?
Turnips.
It would have been turnips. There would have been some. Some beans of some Sort. There would have been some brassicas, There would have been some grain, maybe flavored with herbs. But it's intended to be enough to nourish the body, supplemented with bread, but not sufficient to take your mind off your relationship with God.
So this is not meant to be the focus of attention. This is just food to sustain you.
[00:52:40] Speaker C: Yeah, that's what I could do with doing. I like that philosophy.
Hard to do now, isn't it, in the 21st century?
Now, listen, this is great big chunk of stone here. What is this? It's sticking into the room. What am I looking at?
[00:52:57] Speaker A: Well, look at. If you look at this.
[00:52:58] Speaker C: Oh, it's an. Oh, it's a. Oh, it's a corridor.
[00:53:02] Speaker A: That's right. There was a passage either side.
[00:53:04] Speaker C: I see here.
[00:53:05] Speaker A: We can see here. This is where the fire top would have come out. This is where a support to the fire would have come out. There would have been a huge chimney up the middle, taking the.
The heat and the fumes from both the fireplaces into one chimney.
[00:53:20] Speaker C: I see. That makes a lot of sense. I didn't see behind it, so I couldn't actually see that there was a corridor.
[00:53:26] Speaker A: And we think it was one of those on that side as well.
[00:53:27] Speaker C: Yeah, we think. And so going through further to the south to back towards the back of the abbey, what's in. Was this an outdoor area, a court? It looks like it should be because there's buttresses here. So this looks like it was outdoors.
[00:53:40] Speaker A: Yeah, this is outdoors. This. This is a yard.
[00:53:42] Speaker C: Just a yard? Yeah, a functional yard to serve the kitchen.
[00:53:45] Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely. Well, you know, I need fire. I need firewood.
[00:53:48] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:53:49] Speaker A: Maybe coal as well. Anything for burning would have been stored out here.
[00:53:53] Speaker C: There you go.
Excellent.
Okay, so.
[00:53:59] Speaker A: So we know that there was a doorway and the food went that way to the lay brothers.
And here we have what looks like a doorway that would have taken the food to the choir among us. But. But we know it's more than just a doorway.
[00:54:13] Speaker C: How do we know that? What was it then?
[00:54:15] Speaker A: Well, look at this.
[00:54:17] Speaker C: It's.
[00:54:20] Speaker A: It's curved.
[00:54:21] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:54:22] Speaker A: So a normal doorway would just be plain.
[00:54:24] Speaker D: Yeah.
[00:54:25] Speaker A: With no curvature.
[00:54:26] Speaker C: Didn't have a written.
[00:54:27] Speaker A: Yes, it did. No. Yes, it did go.
[00:54:29] Speaker C: So.
[00:54:30] Speaker A: But I'm not going to say. What? I'm not going to use those words.
[00:54:32] Speaker C: Okay, I'll use those words and you can give me the proper term. I said, is it a revolving door? That's what I was about.
[00:54:39] Speaker A: No, no. Okay. No, it's not a revolving door. I thought you were Going to say lazy Susan.
We have a circular tray on a pivot with a screen down the middle.
That side we have lay brothers typically preparing the food. They lay it on their side.
On this side we have a monk or two monks whose job today is to pass the food around their community.
So they turn it, take off the food and pass it round.
[00:55:06] Speaker C: So clever.
[00:55:07] Speaker A: So we have here a means by which even passing the food, the monks and the lay brothers are kept separate.
The avoidance of distraction is the key function.
[00:55:22] Speaker C: And I've been on one or two silent meditation retreats before in my time, and the encouragement is to not really even look at somebody. Not really even to sort of engage facially with people, to sort of. Was that what it was like for the Cistercians as well?
[00:55:38] Speaker A: I can't say that's what it was like. But if you look at. If you look at what they were wearing, they would have had cowls. And these cowls came a long way over, which probably meant eye contact would have been quite hard. You'd have had to pull the cowl back. So my guess is, yes, probably you were.
[00:55:57] Speaker C: You were sort of encouraged to keep within your own space.
[00:56:01] Speaker A: Yeah, exactly, yeah.
[00:56:03] Speaker C: And so at lunch, you know, at dinner, how did they say, can I have the salt?
[00:56:07] Speaker D: Or something?
[00:56:09] Speaker A: Because it was a silent order, they developed sign language and therefore they were able to nudge them, that person next door to them and, you know, pass the bread, pass the salt, whatever. They had the means to. To ask for more.
[00:56:21] Speaker C: Yes, but in a minimal way.
[00:56:24] Speaker A: So. But this is a monk's refectory, and they would have sat on benches around the sides, looking inwards. And while they're eating, one of them would have gone up through that door.
[00:56:36] Speaker C: Yes, a little rounded door, entrance there on the.
[00:56:39] Speaker A: On the west side, up the steps to the top into what is called the pulpita. Do you want to go up?
[00:56:45] Speaker C: Yes, I do want to go up, yes. So you can still. Oh, the doorway. Yes, we've got the doorway. And the steps still survive.
[00:56:51] Speaker A: Yep.
[00:56:55] Speaker C: So this is where I'm going to read the lesson of the day, I take it.
[00:56:59] Speaker A: Oh, essentially.
[00:57:01] Speaker C: So there would have been, right at the top here, a pulpit.
[00:57:04] Speaker A: Yep.
Well, this is called the pulpit petum. So it's from here they would have read. It's where we get our modern word. Yes, but if you think about it, what is a pulpit? It's a raised platform where somebody talks to us.
[00:57:17] Speaker C: Yes. And this is really raised. I mean, what a view down over the, you know, the. The seated congregation so, yeah, so while
[00:57:24] Speaker A: they're eating, you are reading a religious text to keep their mind focused on their relationship with God and essentially take their mind off the. The fact the food is dire and
[00:57:37] Speaker C: the whole room is. You've got this whole gallery of windows wrapping all the way around. And right beside me here, you've got a. A huge window allowing the light in so I could read. I take it in.
[00:57:50] Speaker A: Yeah. And here's an interesting distinction between the lay brothers and the choir monks.
We think this is glazed plain glass.
[00:57:58] Speaker C: Yes.
[00:57:58] Speaker A: Because when this is built, there was no colored glass allowed, because colored glass is a distraction.
The lay brothers, we think, had shutters.
[00:58:07] Speaker C: Oh, yeah, Right. Okay.
[00:58:09] Speaker A: So there's a massive difference between the two communities, even though the rule book describes them as being different but equal.
So.
[00:58:18] Speaker C: Yeah, brilliant.
[00:58:19] Speaker A: All around the outside and you read while they. While they eat.
[00:58:23] Speaker C: Right, let's head down. Lesson of the day complete, nearly.
[00:58:31] Speaker A: Because, of course, you have to have somewhere to store the stuff you're going to read.
[00:58:36] Speaker C: And this is the little alcove here where the books were kept. Yeah, I love it. It's great, isn't it?
Everything had its.
[00:59:17] Speaker D: Sa.
[01:00:46] Speaker C: So, right, the way through the time of the abbey, the choir monks still came from noble families, literate, noble families.
Did that change over time? Over the centuries?
[01:01:00] Speaker A: Yeah. Bearing in mind Fountains was here for 400 years.
[01:01:03] Speaker C: Indeed.
[01:01:03] Speaker A: By the end. By the end of the abbey's life, all the monks had had local names. You know, the last. The last abbot were. One was a man called William Thirsk,
[01:01:12] Speaker C: you know, from the town. Local town of Thirsk.
[01:01:15] Speaker A: So they all had English names and we've got no idea whether they were Norman, French, because 400 years on, who knows? Nobody was.
[01:01:22] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, indeed. Right, where do we need to go now?
[01:01:27] Speaker A: So this is called the warming room
[01:01:31] Speaker C: and we're very much now back in an enclosed space.
Lovely. Again, You've got that lovely arch fault supporting the ceiling above us, and a large fireplace, I take it?
[01:01:43] Speaker A: Yep.
And this was lit on the 1st of November and it kept burning 24 hours until good Friday.
And it was the only place where monks could legitimately come and warm their hands. But of course, most of the time they wouldn't be allowed in here because they're doing other things.
[01:02:00] Speaker C: Yeah.
[01:02:02] Speaker A: And it's also where we think the monks would have been shaved because the choir monks had to be clean shaven and they had to have a tonsure.
[01:02:11] Speaker C: Yes.
[01:02:12] Speaker A: They had to have the top of the head shaved to create this crown of thorns.
[01:02:17] Speaker C: Oh, that's the crown of thorns is.
[01:02:19] Speaker A: And of course, while most men can shave their faces, you know, I. I challenge you to do your head.
[01:02:25] Speaker C: To do your head in a nice circular pattern. Yeah.
[01:02:28] Speaker A: So we think they would have had an outside barber coming in regularly to do this.
[01:02:33] Speaker C: Yes.
Very good.
[01:02:36] Speaker A: And is it also worth saying this is probably where they got bled?
[01:02:40] Speaker C: Oh, really?
[01:02:41] Speaker A: Yes. You've talked about this before, haven't you?
[01:02:43] Speaker C: No, I don't. I don't know whether we have so much, actually. No, go on.
[01:02:47] Speaker A: So every three or four months, all the monks were bled.
There was a belief stemming from the ancient Greeks. And what's bizarre is by the time the monks here were doing it. We're talking about a practice that's more than 1500 years old, that a healthy body has to have a balance of four humors.
Phlegm, yellow bile, black bile, and blood. And in order to maintain that balance, I have to be periodically bled. That would take place in here. It would have to be an outsider, because monks are not allowed to spill blood.
[01:03:20] Speaker C: Right.
[01:03:21] Speaker A: And they would probably drain the poor, poor man of around half his body's worth.
[01:03:26] Speaker C: Really?
[01:03:27] Speaker A: Oh, yeah, yeah.
[01:03:30] Speaker B: Crike.
[01:03:32] Speaker C: I was going to say, it sounds like they really paid attention to looking after their physical health, which suppose in their minds they did, but drink somebody's half, somebody's blood volume away can't have been very good for it.
[01:03:44] Speaker A: I can't imagine that anyone's feeling very good.
The upside is they are now allowed to go to the monk's infirmary to recover.
[01:03:51] Speaker C: Right.
[01:03:52] Speaker A: And because it's acknowledged that replenishing one's blood is quite a challenge, they're allowed meat.
And in the early days of the abbey, that's the only time they're allowed meat. And because meat's not allowed in the main kitchen, the infirmary has to have its own.
[01:04:08] Speaker C: Right. Okay.
So it's interesting, is it the word infirmary still survives today. We still, you know, people would know what you're talking about if you use the word infirmary.
[01:04:20] Speaker A: Yep.
[01:04:21] Speaker C: And it was there to look after purely the monks and the lay brothers.
[01:04:24] Speaker A: The lay brothers had their own infirmary on the west.
[01:04:27] Speaker C: So the caps.
[01:04:28] Speaker D: Separate still.
[01:04:28] Speaker A: Kept separate.
[01:04:29] Speaker D: Yes, yes.
[01:04:31] Speaker C: So where do we need to go then next? Do you suggest up here? It's a wonderful flight of.
[01:04:37] Speaker A: It's a wonderful flight of stairs. It's called the Monk's Day stairs, and it's called the Monk's Day stairs because this is the set of stairs that gives them access to their toilet and it gives them access to their dormitory
[01:04:57] Speaker C: as Opposed to obviously the night stairs.
[01:05:00] Speaker A: Yes, I'll talk about that later.
[01:05:02] Speaker C: Okay, so yeah, at the top of
[01:05:04] Speaker A: the staircase on the east side, once upon a time on the first floor, right. The way from here all the way to the church was the monks dormitory.
[01:05:15] Speaker C: Oh I see. Right. Stretching right the way along, I see. Which is.
You wouldn't know it today, would. It's been a lot of it's been raised.
[01:05:22] Speaker A: Imagine. Also of course we have here the monk's toilet which originally would have been over the river.
[01:05:31] Speaker C: Yeah. So you've got the, the long dormer tree and then we're at the right at the back of the abbey and then kind of running perpendicular to that you've got the lavatory arrangements which you were talking about earlier.
[01:05:42] Speaker A: Yeah.
[01:05:43] Speaker C: And then a doorway.
[01:05:44] Speaker A: Yes. And let's go in there.
[01:05:46] Speaker C: So if we push that door open,
[01:05:48] Speaker A: I don't know why it's closed.
[01:05:49] Speaker C: It's banging.
There we go.
Oh, this is a very special room, isn't it?
This is one of the more complete rooms in the abbey. Again you can hear the acoustics has changed but I think apart from again you've got that beautiful, beautiful vaulting with the central pillar. What draws your attention is the tiles. Are these original?
[01:06:17] Speaker A: No, they're not, no. We don't think any of these are original to this room. We think, we think that a man called William Azelby who bought fountains in 1768 and incorporated it into the water gardens as a folly, we think he took them from around the site and just laid them here.
[01:06:35] Speaker C: But there are original to the abbey?
[01:06:37] Speaker A: Oh, they're original to the abbey but probably not to this room.
[01:06:40] Speaker C: Right, okay.
[01:06:41] Speaker A: But this room, this room is a really important room.
If you remember, behind this wall on the, on the east side was the fireplace and the warming room.
[01:06:52] Speaker C: Yes.
[01:06:54] Speaker A: So this is the only wall in the whole abbey likely ever to get warm.
This is the nearest we have to a damp proof room.
This is the archive.
[01:07:06] Speaker C: Ah, right.
[01:07:07] Speaker A: It has a very fancy name called the Muniments room. But essentially this is the monastic archive.
[01:07:12] Speaker D: Wow.
[01:07:14] Speaker C: So. Oh gosh, just think of all the wonderful books and manuscripts that were in
[01:07:19] Speaker A: here and all the land deeds, all the records concerning the management and the running of fountains, all the bills that came in, all the, all the receipts, every letter is received, every letter went out, was copied.
Everything to do with the running of the albie was stored in here.
[01:07:35] Speaker C: I've got two questions for you.
First of all, do we know what happened to any of the books, manuscripts, have any of them survived from Fountains that we can, you know, pinpoint definitively of coming from here.
[01:07:50] Speaker A: Yeah, most of them, really. Yeah. But the vast majority of them are in different archives. There's some in Oxford, some in West Yorkshire. County Archives, North Yorkshire. The Viners, who own last owners of Fountains hall, they had some.
There's lots still around, even going back to the original abbey charter of 1132.
They're still in existence in different archives.
[01:08:19] Speaker C: Oh, that's what I mean, that's wonderful that they still survive.
You seen any of them?
[01:08:23] Speaker A: I've seen the original charter.
[01:08:25] Speaker C: Yeah.
[01:08:25] Speaker A: I can't read medieval handwritten Latin, so, you know, it's nice to say I've seen them, but still a thrill though. Yeah.
So everything was stored in here.
[01:08:33] Speaker C: And the second question I have, which I meant to ask earlier is why is it called Fountains?
[01:08:39] Speaker A: Abby, can I wait till we get to the church for that?
[01:08:43] Speaker C: Oh, you're gonna make me wait.
[01:08:44] Speaker A: Yeah.
So I'm not. I'm not trying to, but there is a reason.
[01:08:49] Speaker C: Okay. Of course, yeah. Let's do it. Right. Okay, let's go. I guess we're. We're sort of heading in that direction, aren't we?
[01:08:55] Speaker A: Now we're working our way around the cloister.
[01:08:58] Speaker C: Yeah.
[01:08:58] Speaker A: We're heading towards the reason for why the monks were here. And I thought that's a good place to end.
[01:09:03] Speaker C: I think that's perfect space. Let's go.
Right back down in the cloister.
I must say, I love these kind of concentric arches. They're fantastic, aren't they? And he just said was the parlor.
[01:09:22] Speaker A: This is the parlor, which is the only room where monks could have a conversation.
[01:09:26] Speaker C: It looks more like a corridor than a room, I have to say. But it's got some gorgeous again, vaulting and the. I don't know what you call these that are the base of the. The bolts. But the carving has survived beautifully, hasn't it?
[01:09:38] Speaker A: And we've got some really nice marks.
[01:09:40] Speaker C: Oh, yes. So you do.
[01:09:42] Speaker A: Overlapping views.
[01:09:43] Speaker C: Overlapping views, yeah.
[01:09:44] Speaker A: And if you look, if the light's good enough, you can see some interesting marks on the ribs. Look.
[01:09:50] Speaker C: Oh, yes. Yeah.
[01:09:54] Speaker A: And I think these are all protective for various reasons, of course.
[01:09:59] Speaker C: Parlour coming from Parc lays.
[01:10:02] Speaker A: Absolutely. It's origins of French.
[01:10:04] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, indeed.
And next door, and you can see a lot of the. This white lime wash. Would the whole building have been covered pretty much when
[01:10:13] Speaker A: it was built in its early years, the whole place was lime washed. It was meant to be essentially free of decoration, free of distraction. But look at this. That, though.
[01:10:23] Speaker C: Yeah. It's like a zed that goes on and then zeds at the top. It's a. Two zeds or a lightning bolt or lightning.
[01:10:29] Speaker A: And if you look at it from above, there is a V and there is a V. Yeah. If you look from below, there is
[01:10:36] Speaker C: a V. There is a V. And on the. Exactly. On the sort of door jam.
[01:10:40] Speaker A: And another one here that can only be seen with the light.
[01:10:42] Speaker C: Okay, wonderful.
Right. And next door we have a very important room, don't we?
[01:10:49] Speaker A: This is the second for the monks. This is the second most important room in the abbey.
[01:10:54] Speaker C: So we're just coming into what, the chapter house.
[01:10:57] Speaker A: This is the chapter house.
And it, again, it confuses visitors because it looks like a grand chapel.
[01:11:04] Speaker C: Yes.
[01:11:05] Speaker A: But of course, it's not a chapel. It's essentially a boardroom.
[01:11:09] Speaker C: Yeah, nice way of putting it. I like that.
[01:11:12] Speaker A: And the monks would have met in here every day. And it's a large rectangular room and it's got benches all the way around the sides.
There would have been some topping to the bench.
[01:11:24] Speaker C: And we can see there were pillars at one stage. So there were two outer aisles and a central aisle.
[01:11:28] Speaker A: Yeah. And if you go somewhere like Jervo, the benches are beautifully preserved.
Absolutely stunningly preserved. But here the benches are just the rocks underneath, what would have been the tops.
[01:11:41] Speaker C: And there are some.
There are some tombstones here. So I take it, because this was an important building, these were probably pretty important people that were.
[01:11:50] Speaker A: Yeah. Traditionally, abbots were buried in the chapter house. And traditionally you would expect to find no one but abbots, I see. In a chapter house.
[01:11:58] Speaker C: Okay.
[01:11:59] Speaker A: And it's. It's interesting that there's this massive distinction between abbots and the rest, because everybody else, the rest, lay brothers, monks, senior monks, sub abbots, are all buried in the cemetery. But abbots get a proper grave with a headstone that commemorates them.
[01:12:20] Speaker C: And I should say. I mean, there was some work done, wasn't there? And I think you've. I'm pointing. I shouldn't point. Beyond the.
Beyond the east end of the abbey. Today there's a large grassy area, and you can walk there. It's all very beautiful by the river, but I think there was some work done. And lots of skeletons have been identified.
[01:12:39] Speaker A: Yeah. Bradford University did some ground penetrating radar a few years ago, and they made, I would say, three incredible discoveries. The one, the first discovery was they found a huge guest hall out on what's called West Green. To the west of the abbey complex, there's this huge guest Hall. They just showed where the foundations were.
They found the tannery further south, further east in the valley, they found the foundations for that. But importantly, they confirmed the cemetery and they showed that all the people who were buried are still buried there. Yeah, but what was remarkable was that they were buried in stacks.
Stacks, maybe four or five deep. And nobody really knows why.
[01:13:21] Speaker B: Yeah.
[01:13:22] Speaker C: But I guess again, it sort of smacks of humility there, doesn't it? You don't have your own grave plot, you know, you. You're just another.
[01:13:31] Speaker A: But God knows who you are.
[01:13:33] Speaker C: You're a goddess, who you are.
[01:13:34] Speaker A: And that's a hope.
That's the mindset. They all believe passionately. It doesn't matter because God knows who I am. And look at this.
Just as in the nave of the church, you have that huge doorway for the building here we have another one, a smaller one.
[01:13:49] Speaker C: Yes.
[01:13:49] Speaker A: So this was part of the building process and when the room was finished, it was blocked up.
[01:13:55] Speaker C: Yeah, Another. Another mark there right next to the door where the doorway was.
[01:14:00] Speaker A: Yeah. And it's again, it's a pentagram.
[01:14:02] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Look at it there. Beautiful star, isn't it?
[01:14:05] Speaker A: Yeah, it's gorgeous.
[01:14:06] Speaker C: And we've got an empty grave here.
[01:14:09] Speaker A: That's not in the right place.
[01:14:10] Speaker C: Do you think it's been moved?
[01:14:11] Speaker A: Well, a, A, the. The heads. The top's gone.
[01:14:14] Speaker C: Yes.
[01:14:15] Speaker A: And B, it's far too high.
[01:14:17] Speaker C: Yeah. Yeah.
I love the way they carve the shoulders in the head. It's perfect.
[01:14:22] Speaker A: He must have been big.
[01:14:23] Speaker C: He's quite big, isn't he? Yeah. Narrow but long.
[01:14:27] Speaker A: Well, they. They certainly in the early days of the abbey, they were living a really austere life.
[01:14:32] Speaker C: Yeah. So they all would have been slim, wouldn't they?
[01:14:34] Speaker A: I would think they've been slim all the time. And desperately hungry.
[01:14:38] Speaker B: Yeah.
[01:14:39] Speaker A: Constantly hungry.
Have you ever noticed this before?
[01:14:46] Speaker C: Not particularly here. No.
[01:14:48] Speaker A: So imagine surrounded with wood and filled with wax.
[01:14:52] Speaker C: Right.
[01:14:53] Speaker A: It's the daily notice board.
Really.
[01:14:55] Speaker C: Yeah.
And you just come and carve your notice on the notes.
[01:15:00] Speaker A: It might well have that sort of daily rotor of jobs. Who. Who's reading over lunch, during lunch, who's collecting the food from the rotating table?
Who's making sure I have towels in the cupboard there when we wash our hands and faces?
Who's reading the chapter to us in the chapter house?
Because we always start the meeting there.
[01:15:17] Speaker C: That's fantastic.
[01:15:18] Speaker A: Reading from the chapter.
[01:15:19] Speaker C: I didn't know that was a chapter
[01:15:22] Speaker A: from what's called, called the book of St. Benedict.
[01:15:24] Speaker C: And so now we go up A short flight of stairs into the
[01:15:33] Speaker D: piece
[01:15:33] Speaker C: de resistance, the beautiful Abbey church.
[01:17:59] Speaker A: Ra,
[01:18:34] Speaker C: With the Hubies Tower towering over us and that great, huge.
I mean, today, empty. But what would have once been, I assume, beautiful. Would it have stained glass, though?
[01:18:45] Speaker A: Because that was built. Yes, yes, it would have. That was built probably in about 1480, right around the time of the. The window Tudor dynasty starting up.
[01:18:55] Speaker C: Not quite Tudors. Not quite Tudors, but yes. So you're in high Gothic there, aren't you? So it's an enormous window that today just is empty. The. All the sort of the stone work which would have filled it in as long gone. But the scale of the building is. Is quite phenomenal.
[01:19:11] Speaker A: It is. It's huge. But you can also see how the nave reflects a very early architectural style with its very, very heavy circular columns. Circular? Well, slightly pointed arches on the ground. On the ground floor.
[01:19:27] Speaker C: Yeah.
[01:19:27] Speaker A: But in the clerestory above.
Rounded.
This is very obviously a transitional period.
[01:19:33] Speaker C: Yes. So that's early medieval. The round columns are often Norman, aren't they?
[01:19:38] Speaker A: Yeah, this is late Norman.
[01:19:39] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah.
[01:19:40] Speaker A: And then we turn around and we've got early Gothic.
[01:19:44] Speaker C: Tell us about early Gothic. How do we know? How do we spot that?
[01:19:47] Speaker A: Well, first of all, we've got really, well, pointed arches. We have much more delicate columns.
And just look at the general distinction in terms of the stonework, how the springers to the. To the vaults, they're all beautifully and finely carved. Whereas all of this is very, very,
[01:20:04] Speaker C: I'll say, crude, primitive, isn't it?
[01:20:06] Speaker A: Definitive.
[01:20:06] Speaker C: Yeah.
[01:20:07] Speaker A: And it's devoid of adornment.
[01:20:11] Speaker C: That's really. That sounds really good, isn't it? So if you come to Fountains Abbey, if you look to the west, you can see everything you'd want to see of early medieval architecture. And if you look to the right, you've got your sort of 13th, 14th century, 15th century.
[01:20:28] Speaker A: This is all. Ignore that big window. Yes, because that big window is just a bit of tinkering.
What we see is the. The presbytery. This. This bit here was punched eastwards in about 1200, I see. And then finished off with what's called the chapter of the nine altars at the end by about 1250. So this is. This is the first half of the 13th century, and I've found almost no marks in any of that.
[01:20:51] Speaker C: That's interesting. So.
[01:20:52] Speaker B: Yeah.
[01:20:52] Speaker C: So things change.
[01:20:53] Speaker A: Yeah.
[01:20:54] Speaker D: And.
[01:20:54] Speaker C: And why were there no marks, do you think, later on?
[01:20:59] Speaker A: I honestly don't know. I can't even begin to offer a hypothesis.
It's. It's There's a handful, but no more than that. I mean, it might just be. But when you look at the walls, everything is really badly eroded.
We may just have lost them, but. But I'm not convinced by that.
And all the way around, you can see it was once lime washed behind, and it would have gone all the way around and all the way down here. And you can see there's lots of little columns missing.
But there's one remaining at the end here where that woman is now.
[01:21:34] Speaker C: Oh, yes, that was black.
[01:21:36] Speaker A: It's called Nidderdale marble and it's polished black.
And that would have. They would have been all the way around the whole site against that white background.
[01:21:46] Speaker C: And that's where the monks, the choir monks would have sat to hear the service.
[01:21:50] Speaker A: No, no, no.
Where they. That. Right, the choir. The choir monks would have had something like eight. Eight sung services every day. And that would have been here.
[01:22:01] Speaker C: Right, right in the center. Right where the transepts are.
[01:22:04] Speaker A: Well, what's called the crossing.
[01:22:06] Speaker C: Yeah.
[01:22:06] Speaker A: And there would have been ordinary choir stalls.
[01:22:09] Speaker C: Right.
[01:22:11] Speaker A: You know, go to any church, you see choir stalls. And that's what we would have had here. And in the early days, it would have. Would have been very simple. And by the end of the abbey's life, they might have been slightly more complex.
If you go, for example, to Richmond Parish Church, you can find the choir stalls from Easby Abbey. If you go to A's Garth, you can find some of the choir stuff from Jervo. So some of it still exists, but I don't think ours do.
[01:22:37] Speaker C: Right.
[01:22:38] Speaker A: But just two roads of choir stalls where the monks would have sat and sung their services.
[01:22:43] Speaker C: And screened off from the rest of the.
[01:22:45] Speaker A: Screened off from the. From the riffraff.
[01:22:47] Speaker C: The riffraff flavor. There's another riffraff.
[01:22:49] Speaker A: Yeah. So anybody else would have been behind screens.
[01:22:52] Speaker C: Yes.
[01:22:52] Speaker A: And they would have not been allowed to participate because this was the sun worship.
[01:22:57] Speaker C: So they just. They were just there to hear the mass and their presence was sufficient.
[01:23:03] Speaker A: Yes. And if at any point there was that traditional and you know, peace be with you, then of course you would expect the response. And also with you. But that's about it.
[01:23:13] Speaker B: Right.
[01:23:14] Speaker A: They were not expected to engage beyond that sort of repeating.
[01:23:17] Speaker C: Okay, so. Yes, go on.
[01:23:20] Speaker A: Now, the other thing to say is, because this is the crossing, when the abbey was built, there was a single. A simple tower above us, a one story tower called a lantern. And its sole function was to let in light.
Because imagine if this is just roofed above us, limited light comes in sadly, over time that begin to. That began to show signs of wear.
And in the late 15th century they tried to stop it falling by building
[01:23:49] Speaker C: this, which is a sort of buttress, an internal.
[01:23:52] Speaker A: Isn't it the biggest and ugliest buttress you've ever seen inside a building?
[01:23:55] Speaker C: It actually is, yes.
[01:23:58] Speaker A: This is Hoobie's attempt to try and stop it falling as. As was this.
We have this, this archway pointing west eastwards on the, on the south side and that's been blocked up above there to try and add more weight to try and support the tower.
[01:24:18] Speaker B: Yeah.
[01:24:18] Speaker A: And it failed.
[01:24:19] Speaker D: Yeah.
[01:24:20] Speaker A: So Hubie took the tower down, re roofed and built that in, as I say, starting around 1500, which is a
[01:24:26] Speaker C: pretty magnificent tower, I have to say. It's.
And it. I think the thing that always draws my attention is the now eroded writing at the top. What does that roughly say?
[01:24:38] Speaker A: I can't remember what it all says, but it's essentially based around hubby's motto. And hubby's motto was, is give or take honor and glory be only unto God.
[01:24:48] Speaker C: Right, okay, fine.
[01:24:50] Speaker A: And there were other things that related to that around all four sides.
[01:24:53] Speaker C: And that was the bell tower. That's where the bells would have run out during the monastic day.
[01:24:58] Speaker A: Again, by the time that was built, the fountains had a proper peel of bells.
The early days they were allowed only two because they didn't need two. They were not peeling bells.
[01:25:10] Speaker C: There was nobody around.
[01:25:12] Speaker A: No. The bells were there to call people to services and to prayer.
[01:25:15] Speaker C: Yeah.
[01:25:17] Speaker A: But now I'm going to go back to one of your questions.
[01:25:19] Speaker C: Go on.
[01:25:19] Speaker A: Why are we called fountains?
The fact of the matter is we don't actually know and this is a real, a real pain because we know Rivo is Rye Valley, Jervo is your valley. You know, the two rivers and the valleys they're in. Byland is a village and the Avy is near the village. It all makes sense in the geography of the location.
Why are we called fountains? And there's two fanciful stories. One I think is more fanciful than the other.
The first is we're called fountains because there are some springs on the hillside.
But we know from all the written evidence that if the cisterns are offered a site and it doesn't have running water like a stream, because we know that's going to be used as an open sewer and it doesn't have a separate spring supply, they'll reject the site because they need both. So the fact we've got springs just, you know, it's inevitable.
So the fact that the monster is that we're called Fountains after the springs to me, makes no obvious sense.
Which takes us to this.
Above that first window is a statue of a man and he's clearly an Albert because he's holding a crozier. And there's been a long debate as to who he is and for a long time he was thought to be Hubie.
But Michael Carter. You know Michael.
[01:26:43] Speaker C: I do know Michael Carter, yes. He did art our podcast at Revo with us. Yes.
[01:26:48] Speaker A: He's so well informed.
[01:26:50] Speaker C: He is.
[01:26:51] Speaker A: Yeah.
I think it was Michael Carter. He. He did the research and said, no, it's not Hubie, it's Bernard of Clairvaux.
Now, I don't know if you know who Bernard de Clairvo is.
[01:27:00] Speaker C: Well, I've heard the name. Is he the founder of the order?
[01:27:04] Speaker A: No, he's not the founder of the order, but he was, he was one of the, I think the second Albert of Clairvaux.
[01:27:09] Speaker C: Right.
[01:27:10] Speaker A: Which was a Tudor house of Sito.
He was a remarkably active and influential man.
In Fountain's lifetime, we founded eight Tudor houses, that is eight times. We sent eight 12 monks and new abbot to found the new abbey somewhere else.
He founded 60 in his lifetime.
He was also co founder of the Knights Templar and he wrote the handbook for the Knights Templar. He'd been persuaded by Pope Eugenius ii, I think it was the third to persuade European monarchs to fund the second crusade. He was so important, he was given that job.
So a really important man at the time.
When Fountains was incorporated into the Cistercian order, we were incorporated as a Tudor house of Clairvaux.
So we are now a Tudor house of him. He is our father, Albert Bernard de Clairvaux.
[01:28:08] Speaker C: Right.
[01:28:09] Speaker A: Now why does that explain why we call Fountains before he was a monk, like all monks, he was a nobleman. He was a French nobleman and his name was Bernard de Fontaine.
And Fontaine is a village in Burgundy, where he came from.
[01:28:22] Speaker C: Ah, good.
[01:28:23] Speaker A: I think that makes much more.
[01:28:25] Speaker C: Definitely.
[01:28:26] Speaker A: It's a tribute.
[01:28:28] Speaker C: Yeah.
[01:28:28] Speaker A: To. To who? To a man who is incredibly important in his day.
[01:28:32] Speaker C: I can buy into that 100%.
Okay, well, I think we've had a fantastic tour of the abbey and the spaces and I think we're coming to the. I want to come to the end of the story. So it thrived for around 400 years. And then of course, we reach the 16th century and Henry VIII's tussle with the church of Rome and his break from Rome and. And we get to the dissolution and I'M interested to know what happened to the people here. What records do we have of who was here and what happened to them?
[01:29:07] Speaker A: I think there are two parts to that, the last abbot book, but one was this man called William Thirsk, and he retired due to ill health, and he went to live out his days at Jervo.
He then got roped into. Into the Pilgrimage of Grace.
You know about this?
[01:29:24] Speaker C: Yes, indeed.
[01:29:25] Speaker A: So much more about that.
Because he was involved in the Pilgrimage of Grace and because he had been an abbot, he was seen as one of the instigators.
So he, along with Adam, I think it's Adam Sedba, they were hung, drawn in quarters at Tyburn, I think.
So there's that part that's the gruesome bit of the coming to the end of.
After he retired or resigned, we were. We were given a. A man called Marmaduke Bradley, and he. He was a stooge of the crown. And when it came to the final closure, he had persuaded all the existing monks who were left. There were 30. There was him and 31 others. They all went quietly on, I think, November 26th. They met in the chapter house and they signed the handover, the surrender.
They were all ordained priests and they were all given pensions.
[01:30:21] Speaker C: So they just dissipated back into the community.
[01:30:24] Speaker A: It all went quietly.
[01:30:26] Speaker C: Yeah. And in fact, I just would add, you mentioned Michael Carter. He did do a wonderful episode with us at Rivo Abbey a couple of years ago, and he went into some detail about what happened to the monastic community at the dissolution. So, folk, if you want to dive into that part of the story which was repeated across the country, then, then please do tune into that episode and we'll put a link in the description associated with this particular episode.
So that sort of brings me to the abbey building. And there was a. There was a particular. One other particular reason I wanted to do this podcast was I mentioned it earlier on. There is a.
A house that stands not too far from the abbey that we're going to go and visit very shortly.
[01:31:13] Speaker B: And.
[01:31:14] Speaker C: And that really grew out of the ruins. And I think it's a great.
It just illustrates what happened to many of these buildings.
So maybe you could just summarize that for us. What happened here at Fountains, what happened to some of the contents here and the building itself. And then perhaps we can introduce our next guest expert. He'll be joining us today to take up the story.
[01:31:44] Speaker A: Yeah, when. When Fountains surrendered, like all these places, they. They were now the property of the king.
And his sole objective really was to monetize them.
And initially with fountains, he. He halted on that. On that project, thinking that he might turn this into another cathedral of the north.
And I think for about two years he hummed and odd as to whether he should.
Then he realized, a, there's Ripon just down the road, and B, the population is really just too sparse. What's the point? And actually gave that job to Chester.
So Chester Abbey became the new cathedral.
So then he set about selling, and we were sold to a man called Richard Gresham, who was a London merchant who bought fountains principally because he wanted the lead mines.
So he had very little interest in this. And it went largely untouched.
His son also inherited the site, and his son founded what today we know as Gresham College in London.
So they were fairly, you know, important people.
[01:32:55] Speaker C: It didn't have something to do with the bank of England as well.
Thomas Gresham, I think, was. Is. Is credited to have founded. I don't know, it's the bank of England or the Exchange. I think you might be right. There's a wonderful portrait of him, of Thomas Gresham. It's a. It's one of my favorite Holbeins, actually. I think it's a Holbein. It's absolutely glorious. Anyway, yeah, so he was.
[01:33:16] Speaker A: So he was the second owner after. After the closure. And of course, Henry's instructions were clear, if you've bought this place, you must remove the roof. The intended objective was if you remove the. Remove the roofs, they can't be used.
Oh, and by the way, I want the lead.
So he got another income from.
[01:33:33] Speaker C: From the roofs.
[01:33:34] Speaker A: So we've taken the roof off. We're left with this. Gresham does nothing. Gresham is also a Catholic sympathizer, we think, because he was certainly a great supporter of Thomas Woolsey, and I think he paid for his funeral.
So there was that. That link to the pre Reformation days and the rejection of Henry's actions.
So we think Gresham chose not to do anything.
[01:34:00] Speaker B: Right.
[01:34:02] Speaker A: Then they sold on and I forget the name of the family now. It's not the messengers, it's the one in between.
And they started to build Fountains hall at the end of the 16th century.
[01:34:12] Speaker C: Right, okay, fine.
[01:34:14] Speaker A: And they didn't rob the monastic buildings, they robbed the outbuildings.
[01:34:19] Speaker C: Right, okay.
So I think it's the perfect time now to. To conclude our story.
So I just have to say thank you, Paul. You've been a fantastic guest expert today. I've learned. I've learned loads about A place I've come to so many times over the years. So thanks so much.
[01:34:36] Speaker A: So you're very welcome. I've quite enjoyed it and I hope you have too.
[01:34:38] Speaker C: Absolutely. And perhaps you could take us and introduce us to your colleague who's going to pick up the story with us.
So we've come just, I don't know, few, few hundred meters, that's all up from the main Abbey building, actually through where the old inner gatehouse used to be, towards where the outer gatehouse once was. So Paul has been telling me.
But just before you leave the grounds of Fountains Abbey as it is today, you come across a rather magnificent hall on your right hand side. And this was a really important part of why I wanted to, to come here today because once those abbeys were dissolved, very often the buildings were dismantled and used for other purposes. And so I wanted to come along and explore what the story of Fountains hall is. And we have, as I mentioned earlier, a guide to help us do that and she's with me right now. Hello, Helen, welcome to the show. Hello.
So, Helen, could you perhaps introduce yourself and let folk know what you do here at Fountains?
[01:36:48] Speaker D: Yep. So I'm, I'm Helen Forbert. I'm the house and collections manager here and I've been here about seven years.
I perform a curatorial role and deal with conservation on most of the built structures on the estate and the collection that goes with them.
[01:37:04] Speaker B: Wow.
[01:37:04] Speaker C: That keep you busy? Because there's quite a lot.
[01:37:06] Speaker D: It's a. Yeah, it's busy and it's varied.
[01:37:09] Speaker C: Yeah, good stuff. And now we are standing in the kind of the orchard garden that looks at the hall. So this is Fountains Hall.
Now Paul was just saying the, the actual hall itself was probably, was it built towards the end of the Elizabethan period? The end of the 16th century?
[01:37:27] Speaker D: Most of it, yes. So the, the building that you see in front of you now, and this is one of the best vantage points to see it is largely the creation of a man called Stephen Proctor, who bought the estate from the Greshams and set about creating this, this house, really his prodigy house.
We think there was already a building on site.
If you, if you look at the hall here from the front, you'll see this side on the right, on the right hand side.
This, we think is the earlier block built by the Greshams possibly as some kind of banqueting house or hunting lodge.
[01:38:04] Speaker C: I see.
[01:38:05] Speaker D: So we, you know, we're, we're, we're sure that they would have used the, the park that was used as part of that was part of the abbey grounds as a hunting park. And therefore banqueting house and small hunting lodge would be part of that.
Of that build. It's.
It differs slightly from sort of the, the. The left half of the house.
A few strange things. The, the thickness of the walls include the fireplaces which they don't on that side.
[01:38:35] Speaker B: Right.
[01:38:36] Speaker D: There's also evidence of a guard rope which by the time Stephen Proctor was building this house, so 1598 ish. It was a bit old fashioned. So we think this dates from around 1570.
[01:38:48] Speaker C: Right.
[01:38:49] Speaker D: Which would have been when the younger
[01:38:50] Speaker C: Gresham took over the estate and had his banqueting.
[01:38:53] Speaker D: And had his little banqueting house.
[01:38:54] Speaker C: Yeah.
[01:38:55] Speaker A: Right.
[01:38:55] Speaker D: It complicates matters in. There's not a lot of mention in the. In the sort of the documents that transfer the ownership.
But that doesn't always mean that something wasn't there.
[01:39:05] Speaker C: Sure.
[01:39:07] Speaker D: And then obviously Stephen Proctor came and wanted to create something more magnificent. He certainly had intentions to use this building as his courtroom.
So the great chamber, which is the room with the bay window that you
[01:39:20] Speaker C: can see on central.
[01:39:21] Speaker D: The central portion, that's the great chamber now. But it was known as his. His courtroom.
[01:39:27] Speaker C: Okay. So we're going to be hearing a lot more about him. I hear he's not such a nice character.
[01:39:33] Speaker D: He's. He's an interesting character.
[01:39:35] Speaker C: Yeah.
[01:39:36] Speaker D: So definitely his how he made his money is.
Is open to sort of question. He certainly had a position at court. He, he married the Tudor of one of Elizabeth I's musicians. So he had connections there.
But we don't know really what he did at court. And then all of a sudden he appears back here in Yorkshire with enough money to buy an estate and sets about basically creating much more of a fortune for himself by persecuting the local Catholic families. So he was a staunch Protestant, absolutely fervent, and came up with lots of ways in which he could persecute his neighbors.
[01:40:17] Speaker C: Let's come back to that. Perhaps when we get inside and stand in his great chamber, you can tell me some of the stories about what went on in there. But before we go too far on in our story, I just wanted to perhaps highlight that part of this building, or is it all of this building is really being built from the spoils of the buildings around the abbey. Paul was saying that maybe not so much the abbey itself, but perhaps some of the outer buildings were used to. To construct this.
[01:40:48] Speaker D: Yeah, we think. We think the probably the west guest house is the. Is the area that was used to Re to build this, there's almost nothing left of it. It's on the west side of the abbey. So actually bringing the stone up here wouldn't be too much of a. Yeah, the right.
[01:41:04] Speaker C: It's on the right side.
[01:41:05] Speaker B: Yeah.
[01:41:06] Speaker D: And definitely there are marks on the stones here that are the same as some of the ones at the abbey as well.
[01:41:14] Speaker C: Okay.
[01:41:14] Speaker D: And it just makes sense to reuse that stone.
There's a lot of. A lot of talk about, you know, who may have actually designed the building.
It's often been linked with the great sort of builder, architect Robert Smithson, but there's no firm evidence to support that.
It's possibly a man called Bernard Dininghoff, who was a based in York, largely worked in stained glass, but also later in life dabbled in architecture and had designed some buildings similar to this.
We think possibly that Proctor actually originally meant to have it as his lodge and had big plans for the abbey in terms of creating his country house there and then possibly had a reality check in the terms of the price.
[01:42:04] Speaker C: The price, yeah.
Yes. Well, we all know that, don't we? Buy a new house and have great plans and then have to rein it in a little bit. But I just wanted to really highlight for our viewers, our listeners, I should say that, you know, this was a common fate that happened to great monastic buildings after the dissolution. There was a. Something called the Court of Augmentations, largely overseen by Cromwell and his cronies. And the spoils of the dissolution, particularly the buildings and the lands associated with them, were sort of up for grabs. Absolutely. And you, if you were a nobleman, you would go along and lobby. Hopefully you've made some good connections there and you'd be given those lands and those buildings. And quite often it's not here at so much. So much here because as you've just been saying, Helen, it was one of the outer buildings that was used. But quite often the building of the abbey, or part of the building, the abbey, particularly the cloisters, was actually converted into a family home. So even Henry VIII did this for a number of different monastic houses, particularly those that lined the route from London to Canterbury. So it was a very common thing. We don't see that here. And you've just given us a reason why. Maybe it was always intended, intended, but it never actually quite came to pass because it was just too expensive for the family.
[01:43:25] Speaker D: Yeah, I mean, Proctor, we are saying we don't know where quite where his money came from. It's. It's a bit of a mystery. And to actually Convert those buildings, they're enormous. Whereas this is much more manageable. It sits on medieval foundations, so possibly the lesser stables and lower sort of status guest houses.
It's in a strange position for a house. It's sort of set back into the hill rather than on it. It doesn't command its surroundings, it sort of nestles within. And that's possibly why he made it so very lofty. And it was intended to be seen from back here behind us. So when you see it from the hillside, it looks enormous. Actually inside, it's not that big.
[01:44:06] Speaker C: Yeah, because it does actually. If you come one of the routes down to Fountains, what, what I call the back way, you do see it, don't you? And it looks rather splendid.
[01:44:13] Speaker D: It looks enormous.
[01:44:15] Speaker C: Yes, I can attest to that. So what we're going to do is we're going to go inside, we're going to explore some of the rooms, some of the rooms that were open to the public and maybe one or two that aren't.
Talk a little bit about the spaces themselves, but also about the family and, and I want to know more about this Stephen Proctor and what he got up to with the local, Local folk. It doesn't sound very good years.
[01:44:36] Speaker D: I. I think we don't know enough about him, to be honest. I think he definitely. He certainly comes across as a very, very unpleasant man.
[01:44:44] Speaker C: Yes, he.
[01:44:45] Speaker D: He had, you know, in our. In a. From a modern perspective, absolutely no moral compass. However, he would have probably thought that he was on the right side.
[01:44:57] Speaker C: Yeah.
[01:44:58] Speaker D: No, to your point.
[01:45:00] Speaker C: I mean, religious conviction were strong, weren't they? And if he was abiding by his own religious convictions and the other side were heretics.
[01:45:09] Speaker D: Absolutely. He, he would have very much thought he was, he was doing the right thing.
[01:47:28] Speaker C: So we're just approaching the front of the, the steps, which is rather grand, very Jacobean, very prodigy house in stock style. Here are any of the bits that we see, any, particularly any of the pillars from the original abbey, probably the
[01:47:44] Speaker D: two end pieces at the. On the steps here. You'll see they have the shape of mullions, Very, very big mullions. And we think they may have come from possibly Hu's Tower, but we don't know if they were added by Proctor or if there was something that were added at a later date after the 19th century excavations in the abbey.
[01:48:03] Speaker C: Right, I see.
[01:48:04] Speaker B: Okay.
[01:48:05] Speaker C: Now let's go inside and explore some of the spaces inside and perhaps pick up the story of the man himself.
So we've got a very, we've got Quite a short.
What appears to be quite a short staircase going up into the hall. But then it takes a turn, doesn't it? This is really unusual. There's another sort of flight of stairs at right, right angles that takes you up to the first floor level.
[01:48:29] Speaker D: Yeah, it's. It's a. Often seen in, in Robert Smithson houses and it gives a way of creating that symmetrical front and disguises your access in.
[01:48:39] Speaker C: It's very clever.
[01:48:40] Speaker D: It is very clever.
[01:48:48] Speaker C: But why don't we just go and stand. Should we just go and stand over? Yeah, it's not.
It doesn't matter having people in the background, it's just that it needs to. Should we just.
Yeah, that's fine, isn't it?
[01:49:05] Speaker D: Right,
[01:49:07] Speaker C: so Helen, we come inside and we come straight into what looks like a great hall to me. Is that. How would you describe it for the house?
[01:49:13] Speaker D: Yeah, I think it was Proctor's great hall. We call it the Stone Hall. Now it's current appearance owes a lot to the Viner family who did a major refurb project between 1926 and 1931. But there are still original features and certainly I think a lot of the masonry that you can see is probably that which was recycled from the abbey.
[01:49:34] Speaker C: So the house, as you said, there was a big remodeling.
Has the interior of the house, in terms of the layout of the footprint of the chambers, changed a lot, do you think, from when Proctor was here?
[01:49:46] Speaker D: A little, yes. Unfortunately we haven't got great plans as to how the house was before the Viners project.
And because of the two estates joining in 1768, this house became the Lesser house and Studley Royal House became the family's house. So this was used for tenancies, estate stewards, that sort of accommodation. And by way the 19th century it was split into three apartments.
However, the sort of the bones of the house I think very much are probably the rooms that or the structure that Proctor would have created, if only from the fact that it's not that big a house. There's not that much room to maneuver around. It's. It's all about the front and the edifice. And actually once you get in, it's quite.
[01:50:33] Speaker C: It's quite small in running generative terms. So one of the rooms I'm really intrigued about is this great chamber where Stephen Proctor did his work. I. I just want to know more about the man and what happened and maybe we should go up there, stand in that room and you can tell me that story.
[01:50:48] Speaker D: Yep, let's go.
So this Lovely staircase is sadly not from Proctor's time. It was put in by the Viner family. Although it is Jacobean staircase and it's
[01:51:01] Speaker C: gorgeous oak, isn't it?
[01:51:02] Speaker D: We don't know what the staircase was like here before. We haven't got the records.
[01:51:07] Speaker C: Wow. Look at the staircase. It just goes up and up and up.
God, can you imagine how much it cost to put this in?
Absolute fortune.
[01:51:20] Speaker D: Right.
This is quite an interesting doorway. So the style of it is a little bit earlier than Proctor's build, we think around 1570, which might relate to the Gresham block, which is basically from
[01:51:35] Speaker C: here, where we sort of. Where we are now.
[01:51:37] Speaker D: Yeah, yeah.
[01:51:38] Speaker C: It's definitely more typically Tudor, isn't it, with the typical flattened Tudor arch.
[01:51:43] Speaker D: Yeah.
[01:51:46] Speaker C: Oh, wow.
[01:51:47] Speaker D: What a.
[01:51:49] Speaker C: Tell us about this room.
[01:51:50] Speaker A: Wow.
[01:51:51] Speaker D: So this is the. Our great chamber.
The chimney piece is definitely original and in situ. The ceiling, despite appearances, is actually 1926.
The. The Viners put it in. It is a copy of a 1598 ceiling from Canonbury Tower in Islington.
[01:52:09] Speaker C: I know it. Yeah.
[01:52:11] Speaker D: And the Viners would have known it because it was owned by Commander Viner's family.
[01:52:16] Speaker C: All right.
[01:52:18] Speaker D: But we don't know what Proctor actually put in here.
However, I think it's probably something like this. This room was designed to impress.
[01:52:26] Speaker C: It certainly was. See, to explain again what this room was for and how Stephen used it.
[01:52:31] Speaker D: So we think this is. Well, this is the room he uses his courtroom. So he used.
He held the manorial court sittings here, and this is how he made his money through fining people.
He came up with various schemes to fine Catholics who didn't conform, didn't pay certain fines and took the money himself.
[01:52:55] Speaker C: So he would issue this. He'd find some flimsy reason, issue a summons, and they'd have to come along here, present themselves.
[01:53:02] Speaker D: And a number of times he got into trouble, but he always seemed to get off. And that's the interesting thing about the connections he may have had at court. He always seemed to get off.
[01:53:12] Speaker C: Can you give us an example of what kind of trouble he would get into?
[01:53:16] Speaker D: Well, I mean, obviously he was. He was a. He was an incomer from a very.
The family. The aristocratic families around here would have called him of lowly status.
[01:53:27] Speaker C: He was.
[01:53:27] Speaker D: He was a yeoman farmer's son, but he was. He was going up against the big families here. So the Mallory family, Sir John Yorke, the Ingrams. So he was. He was going up against some families who'd been established here since the medieval period.
[01:53:42] Speaker C: Yeah.
[01:53:43] Speaker D: So they would complain, he would get taken. You know, he would get taken down to London and, you know, they would present their evidence that he was behaving in an inappropriate way. And yet he always seemed to manage to get off. He was thrown in the tower once, but not for very long, really.
So he seems to have been protected somehow, and then at some point that stops.
We don't know why. Oh, some protector at court possibly died or possibly he went too far.
[01:54:14] Speaker C: Right, okay. Am I rationed if I asked what happened to him?
[01:54:19] Speaker D: We don't know. He died in 1619. We don't know where he's buried. We don't know what he died from.
[01:54:24] Speaker C: Oh, mysterious.
[01:54:26] Speaker D: It is, yeah. Yeah.
[01:54:27] Speaker C: Wow. And we have a large painting. Is this. Let. This must be later, or is that this.
[01:54:33] Speaker D: This is later, 1640s. So this. I mean, he would probably be spinning in his grave if we knew where it was. This is the Mallory family.
So this is the family that is linked to Sir John Mallory, who. He was one of the men he persecuted as a Catholic. I see. Later, the Mallory family, through marriage to the AES, ended up effectively owning both estates. And that's when the estates joined.
So that's. That's their link. But obviously, I think Stephen Proctor would not be particularly.
[01:55:04] Speaker C: Revenge.
[01:55:05] Speaker A: Revenge.
[01:55:06] Speaker D: Yeah, it is.
But we have this sort of magnificent fireplace. I mean, really, this house is his memorial.
[01:55:13] Speaker B: Yeah.
[01:55:13] Speaker D: And this magnificent fireplace, we've got the Judgment of Solomon. Solomon up here sort of in the center. The slaughter of the innocents to the left. We're not sure what's depicted on this right side.
Could be the story of Isaac, but really, we think it's probably chosen by Proctor and it's showing.
[01:55:33] Speaker B: He.
[01:55:34] Speaker D: He makes wise judgments. So he's. He's making links between himself and Solomon as he is in state, judging people in this room.
[01:55:43] Speaker C: Yeah.
[01:55:44] Speaker D: The fireplace has. Has gone through a lot. As you can see, it's quite worn, unusually so for an interior feature. And that's probably to do with the fact that there was a fire at some point in the 18th century that probably took the ceiling out for a bit. So it's probably fire damage.
[01:55:58] Speaker C: I see.
[01:55:59] Speaker D: And exposure for a while.
[01:56:01] Speaker C: We've got some fantastical characters I particularly like.
It looks kind of like a mermaid with a lady's head, but with dragon sort of wings.
[01:56:11] Speaker D: Yeah. There are some amazing beasts, and I've yet to be able to find which pattern book potentially that these. These came from. Have you looked? You've tried to find. I started to look, yeah. I mean, I know for the. The worthies outside, the nine worthies. That comes from a pattern book produced by Philip Skull in Amsterdam in about 1580. 1585.
Can't find the source for this one yet, but it is an amazing thing. It probably would have been, you know, many colored in its time. Polychrome, possibly with. With bits of inset stone to make it glitter. It would have been magnificent. He was. He was not a modest man.
[01:56:50] Speaker C: And we've even got a little Tudor rose.
[01:56:52] Speaker A: Yeah.
[01:56:53] Speaker C: In the corner there. So maybe a nod to its late Elizabethan origins. Perhaps.
[01:56:59] Speaker B: Maybe.
[01:57:01] Speaker C: So does any of the private rooms of his still exist? Are they.
[01:57:09] Speaker D: Again, it's more of the structure of the building that exists rather than rooms. We can definitely say Stephen Proctor would walk in here and he would know it.
[01:57:16] Speaker C: Yes.
[01:57:17] Speaker D: There's a lovely room downstairs called the Oak Room, which we hope to have open to visitors later on in the year or maybe next year.
It's possible that.
[01:57:28] Speaker C: That.
[01:57:29] Speaker D: That the paneling in there is contemporary, or some of it might be contemporary with Proctor. And often paneling was moved around a house. It didn't stay in the room that it was made for.
So that's. Possibly.
We have another room in what was a staff area, again with oak paneling. We hope to have the. That room open at some point.
[01:57:53] Speaker C: Another lovely Tudor doorway on either side. That flattened Tudor. They're both on either side there.
[01:57:59] Speaker D: We also, interestingly, have those.
These are.
We think these held holy water stoops. So again, Proctor would spin in his grave when, after he died, this house was sold on. Went through a few short ownerships until it became owned by the messenger family in 1627. They were Catholics and they turned this room into their Catholic chapel.
[01:58:24] Speaker C: Ah, that's why that exists, I see. Yes. He would have spun in his grave. Goodness me.
[01:58:29] Speaker D: They purchased a license to practice their faith and this was their chapel.
[01:58:33] Speaker B: Right.
[01:58:33] Speaker D: So it's quite an irony, I think, that this was the room from which Stephen Proctor dispensed arguably dodgy justice.
[01:58:42] Speaker C: Yes.
[01:58:43] Speaker D: To the room that became their place of worship.
[01:58:49] Speaker C: So speaking about spinning in his grave, I.
Because obviously before I came here, you and I chatted and you said that this place was very haunted.
[01:59:02] Speaker D: There are a lot of stories.
There are some documented ones. If you. If you have a look on the Internet, there are some that are a bit more historic from, you know, early 20th century that we've heard, and there are some from now that really there are members of staff who don't like being in this.
[01:59:18] Speaker C: Okay.
[01:59:19] Speaker D: In this building alone, really. Yeah.
[01:59:21] Speaker C: Can you take us to some of those places and tell us a couple of stories, perhaps?
[01:59:25] Speaker D: Yeah, I think that would be perfect for Halloween.
[01:59:37] Speaker B: I love the creaking door.
[01:59:41] Speaker C: Right, Lead the way.
[01:59:43] Speaker D: So this is an area not yet open to visitors.
Hopefully in due course it will be.
So even as recently as this weekend, we had a call from our volunteers saying they couldn't get into this area.
[02:00:04] Speaker C: Yeah.
[02:00:06] Speaker D: And member of staff came down to help.
That door, they couldn't get through it.
As you can see, there's no sort of working lock now. It bolts from the back.
She couldn't get in that way. Had to go all the way down and come up a spiral staircase, which, incidentally, is a piece possibly from the west guest houses in the abbey.
[02:00:29] Speaker C: Oh, right.
[02:00:30] Speaker D: Couldn't get through those doors.
Eventually had to get in. In through another way and found that that door had been bolted from the back. No one had been in here. No one knows anything about it.
But there are a few other stories about doors that rattle as well.
Oh, on cue.
[02:00:51] Speaker C: That's brilliant.
[02:00:52] Speaker D: At night from when staff have lived here.
[02:00:54] Speaker C: Okay, right. So people used to. Used to live here, right?
[02:00:57] Speaker D: Yeah, they did.
[02:00:58] Speaker C: Oh, let's get out of the way.
So what's your. What's your favorite ghost story from around here? Is there a. Is there a historic ghost that keeps popping up it. It. There.
[02:01:15] Speaker D: There is. There's all sorts of stories of children that play on the stairs. So the stairs are. We came up.
There's another story of a lady that's seen walking down those stairs.
I spend a lot of time alone in this building, as does our collections assistant. We've never seen anything.
But one of the team members came down once and walked in the stone hall and said that the monitoring equipment we use, which is sort of like a little white box with an antennae on it, monitors the relative humidity.
Flew off the wall and nearly hit her.
[02:01:55] Speaker C: Wow.
[02:01:55] Speaker D: And she's absolutely convinced that was Stephen Proctor because she's Catholic.
[02:02:02] Speaker C: Oh, wonderful. Do you ever hope you will see or feel a ghost in here?
[02:02:09] Speaker D: It has an atmosphere.
You know, it does have an atmosphere, but it's my job to work in here. So I just. If I think there's an atmosphere, I just say hello.
[02:02:23] Speaker C: Hello. Yeah, wonderful.
[02:02:25] Speaker D: But certainly there are lots of things sort of historically, where people who've lived here as part of the Viners household have said there's always children that play on the stairs, play marbles on the stairs, or there's a woman that walks around. So it depends. I think you'd Be hard pressed in a house of this size and this age not to have a ghost story.
[02:02:47] Speaker C: I think so. Absolutely.
Good. Well, I think it's been great to explore this house and to see the sort of how houses such as this rose out of the ruins of a really devastating period in English history, really.
And thank you for showing us round. But before we go, I'd love for you to talk about how people can find out more about Fountains, about your opening times for the abbey and for the hall and any. Any other events that you think might. People might be interested in that you have going on on a relatively regular basis.
[02:03:25] Speaker D: Okay. I mean, everything is available on the website in terms of when the. When the site opens. So 9, 30 and 11 for the hall until 4 o'. Clock.
We are hoping this Christmas that we will dress the hall theme yet to be disclosed.
Might be slightly spooky.
[02:03:45] Speaker C: Oh, lovely.
[02:03:47] Speaker D: And then we've also got our usual flood lighting event.
Again, the dates will be on the website.
They tend to be in October and into early November. And that's something that's been going on at Fountains since the Viners were here in the 1930s.
[02:04:01] Speaker C: And it's very. I've been. And it's very atmospheric. So if you are up in North Yorkshire, anywhere in the region of Fountains in the winter time, do come along after dark. Because you play music. Do you still play the music? The monastic music. And the ruins are lit up. It's very evocative. You get nicely wrapped up and it's beautiful.
[02:04:21] Speaker D: Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's lovely. It's a really popular event.
[02:04:24] Speaker C: Yeah.
[02:04:26] Speaker D: And yeah, the ruins look amazing.
[02:04:29] Speaker C: So I would just say, of course, Fountains Abbey is run by the National Trust. So when we're talking about the website, we're talking about the National Trust's website. And once again, we'll put a link in the description associated with this podcast.
So I think all that remains for me to do is say, thank you so much, Helen, for being our guide and introducing me to this wonderful hall. You're very welcome.
[02:04:53] Speaker B: Well, that's a massive thank you, of course, to Paul and Helen and all the staff at Fountains Abbey and the National Trust who made this podcast recording possible. I hope you've learned a lot along the way and you enjoyed the conversation. And of course, I will be back next month with another episode of the Tudor History and Travel show, and this
[02:05:12] Speaker C: time it's back to Wales.
[02:05:13] Speaker B: And I'm going to be exploring North Wales over the next couple of episodes. And some of the mightiest castles that saw some serious action during the wars
[02:05:26] Speaker C: of the Roses and and have some
[02:05:27] Speaker B: fascinating medieval and Tudor History associated with them. So I'll see you on the road again soon.
Thank you for tuning in to today's episode of the Tudor History and Travel Show. If you've loved the show, please take
[02:06:00] Speaker C: a moment to subscribe, like and rate
[02:06:02] Speaker B: this podcast so that we can spread the Tudor love.
[02:06:06] Speaker C: Until next time, my friends. All that remains for me to say is happy time traveling.
[02:06:18] Speaker A: Sam.
