Taking only photographs – leaving only footprints
Having a day to explore North Yorkshire is never enough time to see very much but looking on a map I realised I hadn’t been to Fountain’s Abbey before. This was my first view from the western side after walking from the nearby carpark and visitors centre. The Abbey is one of the largest monasteries in England founded in 1132 AD.
Driving around North Yorkshire, I looked on the map for somewhere to visit and saw we were close to Fountains Abbey. Having heard of the name but never visited it before I took the gamble that it might be worth a photograph. Little did I know, that this is one of the largest and best preserved monasteries in England. This is the view from the Cloister Court looking towards the main tower.
Driving north (up the B6160) through the middle of the Yorkshire Dales on a typical overcast morning, I spotted the sun on these fields and had to pull the car over for a photograph. Taken back in June in England you can see Gain Bank Wood behind a landscape of dozens of dry stone walls carving up the green fields. I was heading from Skipton, towards Leyburn on my journey up to Northumberland, to see my friends Mark and Rachel who were staying up there – good times.
Founded in 1132 Rievaulx (pronounced ree-voh) is a former Cistercian abbey in North Yorkshire. I hadn’t heard of it before my cousin Liz suggested it might be worth seeing, so after some research and on my way north I made my way to the abbey. After a quick wander round the area to see where I wanted to capture my photograph from I got a sudden window of opportunity. So far it had been a very overcast day, even though there were odd patches of blue in the sky, the sun was behind the clouds. Then suddenly the light shone down onto the Abbey for literally no more than a couple of minutes, but I was able to run over and capture the above photograph before the cloud hid the sun again.