Fountains Abbey & Studley Royal World Heritage Site Management Plan Summary 2015—2021 A special place... One of the most spectacular water gardens in England A world away from the hustle and bustle of modern life 2 World Heritage Site Management Plan Summary 2015 — 2021 Fountains Abbey and Studley Every World Heritage Site must have Royal is a special place for many a management plan, which guides its people for lots of different reasons. sustainable management for every six year period. This is an important For some it’s a place of peace and document which needs to be approved tranquillity, somewhere spiritual and a by the Department of Culture, Media and world away from the hustle and bustle of Sport and the UNESCO World Heritage modern life. To others it’s a fun place to Committee. After consulting with a wide come with the family and have adventures. range of stakeholders including visitors, It’s a place of work, a place to volunteer and the local community, regulatory bodies for some a place of learning, whether that and landowners we have written the be dressing up as a monk or conducting 2015—2021 Management Plan. painstaking research for a PHD thesis. This summary document explains the It’s also a business, attracting on average Some of the largest process we have followed in reviewing 350,000 visitors each year who all the plan and some of the actions in the Cistercian abbey contribute towards raising the necessary plan. It is by no means comprehensive funds for essential conservation work. ruins in Europe — the full plan is 63 pages long and A source of pride for the local community, available to download from our website. and an icon in Yorkshire and further afield, this place we all commonly call ‘Fountains’ I hope you enjoy reading this summary is a World Heritage Site, recognised document; I’d be delighted to hear internationally as such by the United your thoughts. Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO). Best Wishes, The eighteenth-century water garden, incorporating some of the largest Cistercian abbey ruins in Europe, shares the landscape with a deer park, Jacobean Sarah Parkinson mansion and a magnificent Victorian church designed by William Burges. World Heritage Site Coordinator & Conservation Manager at Together with our partners, it’s our role Fountains Abbey & Studley Royal to ensure that this exceptional landscape is looked after, so that future generations may also experience this inspirational place. World Heritage Site Management Plan Summary 2015 — 2021 3 What is a World Heritage Site? World Heritage Sites are special places considered by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) to be of outstanding universal value to mankind. World Heritage Sites belong to all the peoples of the world, irrespective of where they are located. By identifying these special places of great cultural and/or natural value UNESCO aims to safeguard them so that they can be passed to future generations. 4 World Heritage Site Management Plan Summary 2015 — 2021 Why is Fountains Abbey & Studley Royal a World Heritage Site? To be inscribed as a World When most people think of gardens, The fashion for ‘English’ gardens Of course there are other significant Heritage Site, a place must not they think of colourful borders filled with spread across Europe and further afield buildings and landscapes on the estate only demonstrate ‘outstanding flowers. As an outstanding example of and the name which became most which also contribute towards our World the ‘English’ garden style Studley Royal commonly associated with the style Heritage Site status, fulfilling another of universal value’, it must also fit is very different. The early parts of the was ‘Capability Brown’. the UNESCO criteria. The Abbey is more at least one of ten criteria garden constructed by John Aislabie than an eighteenth-century romantic folly; established by UNESCO. from 1718 are influenced by earlier formal Follies, statues and eye-catchers were it is of international importance in its own French and Dutch geometric designs a common feature in gardens in the right, ruins of one of the select group of The name of the estate on our World though moving in a more naturalistic, eighteenth century. The Aislabies built Cistercian houses to survive from the Heritage Site inscription is ‘Studley Royal English, direction. Later in the eighteenth many of these features, but there could twelfth century. There are also Fountains Park, including the ruins of Fountains century this move towards a more natural be no finer eye-catcher than the grand Hall, St. Mary’s Church, Fountains Mill and Abbey’, rather than the name we’re usually approach progressed further. Instead of ruins of Fountains Abbey, which happened the deer park. Together with the Water known by, ‘Fountains Abbey & Studley imposing a design upon nature, this style to be in their neighbour’s garden. So that Garden, these buildings and landscapes Royal’. You may be surprised to know that worked in harmony with it — especially the the Aislabies and their guests could enjoy combine to make a harmonious whole the eighteenth-century garden, and the natural shapes of the landscape. This was the magnificent ruins, viewpoints were which UNESCO considers to be ‘an way that the Aislabies incorporated the a uniquely English art form that always created in the garden, with the majestic outstanding example of a type of building, abbey ruins into their forward-thinking considered the ‘genius of the place’ — sight of the Abbey a highlight of an architectural or technological ensemble garden design is the main reason we’re a that special atmosphere that makes a place eighteenth-century tour. John Messenger, which illustrates significant stages in World Heritage Site. UNESCO considers distinctive. Inspired by and leading such the owner of Fountains Abbey, finally human history’ another of the ten this designed landscape to be a feat of ideas, William Aislabie further developed agreed to sell his estate to William Aislabie World Heritage Site criteria. ‘human creative genius’ which is one the garden while maintaining much of his in 1767 meaning that the Abbey could be of the ten World Heritage Site criteria. father’s earlier designs at its core. In one formally integrated with the rest of the landscape Studley Royal demonstrates, garden, rather than just simply viewed perhaps uniquely, the evolving garden at a distance from it. tastes of the eighteenth century. World Heritage Site Management Plan Summary 2015 — 2021 5 Creating our new management plan Writing the draft plan To create our new management plan We’re still grouping the management we began by reviewing our old plan. objectives, and their accompanying We looked at what we had delivered and actions, under the following four UNESCO recommends that how we had performed against our key themes: each World Heritage Site has performance indicators. Before we put a management plan. Our plan pen to paper we spoke with stakeholders contains the following: and partners and held consultations with Theme 1: staff and volunteers so that they could Theme 2: Overall Conservation & — An updated vision for the WHS shape the plan at an early stage. In 2014, together with our partners we held a public Management Environmental — 30 year management objectives, consultation event at Ripon Town Hall Approach Performance grouped under four themes so that the local community could also have their say, and encouraged visitors — A six year action plan which to our World Heritage Day event in April delivers the long term objectives to get involved. — Key partners who will help These consultations helped us when we us to deliver the action plan were looking at the 30 year management Theme 3: Theme 4: objectives to see if they were still relevant Access, Enjoyment Local Community today. We found that the objectives still & Understanding rang true, however we have tweaked the Links & Partnerships wording of them in places. From talking to stakeholders we also found that some of the issues affecting the site had either diminished or increased in prominence. Taking into the account the issues and the suggestions gathered during the consultations, we’ve thought carefully The next four pages contain a summary about the six year actions we’re of these themes so that you can get committing to in the 2015—2021 plan. a flavour for the content of the plan. 6 World Heritage Site Management Plan Summary 2015 — 2021 Vision for the The designed landscape was inscribed as World Heritage Site in 1986 and since that World Heritage Site time the National Trust and partners have undertaken an ambitious programme of Fountains Abbey & Studley Royal is conservation work to restore the gardens a special place, loved for generations. to their former splendour, ensuring the It is a place of calm reflection, of delight outstanding universal value of the WHS is and exploration for those who come sustained for future generations to enjoy. to discover it now and in the future. At the same time, facilities for visitors such Taking the eighteenth-century pleasure as the Visitor Centre and Porter’s Lodge gardens as its core and inspiration, interpretation centre have been developed the site possesses many layers of an as part of our mission to present and extraordinary history that has shaped transmit the outstanding universal value the Abbey, the parkland, the rural of the site to as many people as possible. landscape and extended further afield to other landscapes.