RIPON AND FOUNTAINS.
RIPON MINSTER.
Proceeding still farther northward from the charming vale of Wharfe, we come to the valley of the Ure, which flows into the Ouse, a main tributary of the Humber, and to the famous cathedral-town of Ripon. This is a place of venerable antiquity, for it has been over twelve centuries since a band of Scotch monks came from Melrose to establish a monastery on the sloping headland above the Ure. A portion of the ancient church then founded is incorporated in the present Ripon Minster, which was built seven centuries ago. It was burned and partly injured by the Scotch in the fourteenth century, and subsequently the central tower and greater part of the nave were rebuilt. It has recently been entirely restored. The cathedral consists of a nave, with aisles extending the full width of the western front, and rather broad for its length; the transepts are short. Parallel to the choir on the southern side is a chapter-house. It is one of the smallest cathedrals in England, being less than two hundred and ninety feet long, and other buildings so encompass it as to prevent a good near view. There is an ample churchyard, but the shrine of St. Wilfrid, the founder, whose relics were the great treasure of the church, has long since disappeared. It appears that in ancient times there was great quarrelling over the possession of his bones, and that Archbishop Odo, declaring his grave to be neglected, carried them off to Canterbury, but after much disputing a small portion of the saint's remains were restored to Ripon. Beneath the corner of the nave is the singular crypt known as Wilfrid's Needle. A long passage leads to a cell from which a narrow window opens into another passage. Through this window we are told that women whose virtue was doubted were made to crawl, and if they stuck by the way were adjudged guilty. This is the oldest part of the church, and is regarded as the most perfect existing relic of the earliest age of Christianity in Yorkshire. The cathedral contains some interesting monuments, one of which demonstrates that epitaph-writing flourished in times agone at Ripon. It commemorates, as "a faint emblem of his refined taste," William Weddell of Newby, "in whom every virtue that ennobles the human mind was united with every elegance that adorns it."
THE TRANSEPT, FOUNTAINS ABBEY.
In the neighborhood of Ripon is the world-renowned Fountains Abbey, of which the remains are in excellent preservation, and stand in a beautiful situation on the verge of the fine estate of the Marquis of Ripon, Studley Royal. The gates of this park are about two miles from Ripon, the road winding among the trees, beneath which herds of deer are browsing, and leading up to the mansion, in front of which is an attractive scene. The little river Skell, on its way to the Ure, emerges from a glen, and is banked up to form a lake, from which it tumbles over a pretty cascade. The steep bank opposite is covered with trees. John Aislabie, who had been chancellor of the exchequer, laid out this park in 1720, and such repute did his ornamental works attain that Studley was regarded as the most embellished spot in the North of England. Ultimately, through heiresses, it passed into the hands of the present owner. The pleasure-grounds were laid out in the Dutch style then in vogue, and the slopes of the valley were terraced, planted with evergreens, and adorned with statues. Modern landscape-gardening has somewhat varied the details, but the original design remains. In the gardens are the Octagon Tower, perched upon a commanding knoll, the Temple of Piety, near the water-side, and an arbor known as Anne Boleyn's Seat, which commands a superb view over Fountains Dale. Let us enter this pretty glen, which gradually narrows, becomes more abrupt and rocky, and as we go along the Skell leads us from the woods out upon a level grassy meadow, at the end of which stand the gray ruins of the famous Cistercian abbey. The buildings spread completely across the glen to its craggy sides on either hand. On the right there is only room for a road to pass between the transept and the limestone rock which rears on high the trees rooted in its crannies, whose branches almost brush the abbey's stately tower. On the other side is the little river, with the conventual buildings carried across it in more than one place, the water flowing through a vaulted tunnel. These buildings extend to the bases of the opposite crags. The ruins are of great size, and it does not take much imagination to restore the glen to its aspect when the abbey was in full glory seven or eight hundred years ago. Its founders came hither almost as exiles from York, and began building the abbey in the twelfth century, but it was barely completed when Henry VIII. forced the dissolution of the monasteries. It was very rich, and furnished rare plunder when the monks were compelled to leave it. The close or immediate grounds of the abbey contained about eighty acres, entered by a gate-house to the westward of the church, the ruins of which can still be seen. Near by is an old mill alongside the Skell, and a picturesque bridge crosses the stream, while on a neighboring knoll are some ancient yews which are believed to have sheltered the earliest settlers, and are called the "Seven Sisters." But, unfortunately, only two now remain, gnarled and twisted, with decaying trunks and falling limbs—ruins in fact that are as venerable as Fountains Abbey itself. Botanists say they are twelve hundred years old, and that they were full-grown trees when the exiles from York first encamped alongside the Skell.
FOUNTAINS TOWER AND CRYPT.
FOUNTAINS HALL.
Entering the close, the ruins of the abbey church are seen in better preservation than the other buildings. The roof is gone, for its woodwork was used to melt down the lead by zealous Reformers in the sixteenth century, and green grass has replaced the pavement. The ruins disclose a noble temple, the tower rising one hundred and sixty-eight feet. In the eastern transept is the beautiful "Chapel of the Nine Altars" with its tall and slender columns, some of the clustering shafts having fallen. For some distance southward and eastward from the church extend the ruins of the other convent-buildings. In former times they were used as a stone-quarry for the neighborhood, many of the walls being levelled to the ground, but since the last century they have been scrupulously preserved. The plan is readily traced, for excavations have been made to better display the ruins. South of the nave of the church was the cloister-court. On one side was the transept and chapter-house, and on the other a long corridor supporting the dormitory. This was one hundred yards long, extending across the river, and abutting against the crags on the other side. South of the cloister-court was the refectory and other apartments. To the eastward was a group of buildings terminating in a grand house for the abbot, which also bridged the river. All these are now in picturesque ruin, the long corridor, with its vaulted roof supported by a central row of columns with broad arches, being considered one of the most impressive religious remains in England. One of the chief uses to which the Fountains Abbey stone-quarry was devoted was the building, in the reign of James I., of a fine Jacobean mansion as the residence for its then owner, Sir Stephen Proctor. This is Fountains Hall, an elaborate structure of that period which stands near the abbey gateway, and to a great extent atones, by its quaint attractiveness, for the vandalism that despoiled the abbey to furnish materials for its construction. In fact, the mournful reflection is always uppermost in viewing the remains of this famous place that it would have been a grand old ruin could it have been preserved, but the spoilers who plundered it for their own profit are said to have discovered, in the fleeting character of the riches thus obtained, that ill-gotten gains never prosper.