Fountains Abbey and Studley Royal - world heritage site

My visit to 12th-century Fountains Abbey prompted some thinking about the cycles of history, the rise and fall of belief systems and their tangible representation in buildings, art work etc. Fountains Abbey was founded by just 13 monks and grew to be a powerhouse of prayer and wealth. Plundered during Henry VIII's Reformation, it was abandoned, like so many of the beautiful religious houses across the country.


I thought about Angkor Wat in Cambodia. Of a (very roughly) similar era but such very different styles. Angkor Wat much larger (it was an entire city) but also far more complex and elaborately decorated. The Cistercian abbeys have a wonderful simplicity perhaps best illustrated in the cellarium...

I also found myself trying to draw parallels with the present day. I thought of the twin towers in New York, personifications of capitalism and perhaps a twenty-first century equivalent of the great medieval churches and abbeys... 


I walked around the Georgian water garden at Studley Royal - in the construction of which the ruins of the abbey became a focal point, an oversized 'folly'.