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Introduction Map This walk links two important medieval sites near Ripon in North – Fountains Abbey and Markenfield Hall. In OS Explorer 298: monastic times their lands adjoined. In the 16th century both sites lost their original owners in the turmoil that followed Henry Nidderdale th VIII’s break with Rome. In the 20 century, changes of ownership led to restoration and conservation for them both. Distance/Time For more details about these two sites please consult their official websites www.nationaltrust.org.uk/fountains-abbey and 6.5miles (10.5km). Allow about 3 hours. www.markenfield.com Starting Points • Car park at West Gate of Fountains Abbey, Main walk route shown at point 1 on the map. Alternative route • From Ripon, walk up Whitcliffe Lane and join 6 the walk at point 6. The 36 bus passes the end P Parking of Whitcliffe Lane and Quarry Moor, where a path takes you to Whitcliffe Lane. 5 8 Points of Interest • Take the 36 bus from Ripon or passing the entrance to Markenfield Hall 4 7 (Hell Wath Lane) and join the route at point 9. Alight at the Hollin Hall bus stop.

1 3 Terrain P RIPON - APPROX 4.5 MILES Mainly field paths and through woods, with 8 2 some gentle climbs. In wet weather, sections of the route are very muddy. All paths used are public rights of way and permissive paths. Dogs on a short lead please. 13 Useful Information The West Gate car park is the only car park 9 10 on the route. It is free to non-members of the National Trust. This car park is designated disabled parking so you are asked to park at 14 the back of the parking area. 12 HARROGATE - APPROX 10 MILES There is a regular bus service (36) from Leeds, Harrogate and Ripon. For timetable go to www.harrogatebus.co.uk/times

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© Crown copyright and database rights 2014 Ordnance Survey 100019628 The Route 1: From the West Gate car park turn FP sign, to a metal gate. Pass through route. In dry weather you can reach into the courtyard. right uphill, signed “Harrogate”. Turn onto a track, with a hedge to your Markenfield Hall by crossing the left at the fork in the road, signed right. When the hedge ends, bear wall at a stile on your right leading 10: Return from the gatehouse to “, Harrogate”. slightly left downhill and cross the down to a footbridge, over a stream, Hell Wath Lane and turn right, then field to a gate into a wood. and uphill across an arable field to shortly go through the left hand of the 2: Just after the road bends right, Markenfield Hall. At this point you 2 metal gates (way-marked) to head leave the road through a gate or 4: Go through the gate and follow will have a fine view of the Hall. At the (south) along a grassy track passing over a stile on your left into a field. the track in the wood, passing an old end of the field, cross a stile into through three fields and crossing two The field entrance is marked with a archway in the Abbey Wall on your pasture, walk across the field close to stiles. National Trust sign and bridleway left, originally part of Mackershaw the moat, cross a stile to your right signs. The grassy path leads straight Lodge. This is an entrance to Studley over the stone wall and walk across 11: In the third field, follow the track on with the Abbey wall on your right. deer park – red deer can sometimes be the car park towards the gatehouse between fences, at the end of which Continue past a pond in the wood to seen grazing here. Continue along this on the right. Turn left between farm bear right and cross the field on an your left. Stop at the telegraph pole for wide track for about 1km and descend buildings, then right. DO NOT obvious path to a stile. Cross the views of Fountains Hall and a small red to a junction of paths. go into the courtyard through the stile and turn right up the narrow roofed barn, behind which are a group of gatehouse (see point 9). way-marked track called Strait Lane. yew trees known as the Seven Sisters and 5: Here the track from Studley Park This lane is probably very old and is called said to have been planted by the monks. and Studley Roger comes up from Alternatively, if the route above is a “holloway”. Continue along it for The wall is said to be the largest remaining the left. Go straight on, following the muddy, continue along the track nearly 1km, passing Christmas tree monastic boundary wall in Europe. At two ascending way-marked path to reach following the old park wall on your plantations on both sides, to emerge big oak trees, look down at the lumps a gate marked with a Ripon Rowel right, shortly becoming a newly into a field through a small gate. and bumps in the sloping ground which Walk sign. Go through this gate and repaired wall. From here on you will are the remnants of the abbey’s industrial continue straight on, following a line have occasional views of Markenfield Hall 12: Follow the way-marked path along area. There is a second pond which may of trees towards a gate. Go through across the fields. Go through a gate the edge of a field with the hedge on have supplied water or been connected this gate and turn right. and bear right when the park wall your right and views of How Hill to your with the tanning of leather. Continue moves to your left and follow the track left. At the field end, go through a past two more ponds, go through the 6: You are now on Whitcliffe Lane. to reach a gate. Go through the gate metal gate in the corner into another gate and keep to the track, following The lane rises and at the top, continue and turn right on the tarmac drive. field with the hedge on your right. way-marks, then turn right through straight on, passing a picnic seat. Pass through another metal gate at a metal gate and continue straight 9: You are now on Hell Wath Lane the end, then in the next field go 7: ahead, keeping the farm-house on Cross a cattle grid at Bland Close, (as signified on the OS map) leading right across the field, to reach a third your left. The track swings left over bear right and continue keeping the from the A61 to Markenfield Hall. metal gate. In the next field corner, the stone bridge toward the farm. hedge on your right to reach a stile Walk up the drive to the farm take the gap in the hedge to the and gate. Cross the stile and continue buildings, and where it turns right to left of a wooden gate to walk along 3: This is Hill House Farm. Go straight on along the way-marked the hall entrance you may follow it a permissive path with the hedge through a metal gate at the other side track across two fields. up to the moat and gatehouse. Here on your right to a metal gate onto of the bridge. Follow the way-marks you can admire views of the Hall and Whitcliffe Lane. As you walk across 8: to turn right in front of a large barn, Soon after, the track is joined from courtyard. Here you can admire views of these fields you have views of Morcar then left following a FP sign, and right the right by the old deer park wall the Hall and courtyard. Please respect the House to the left and How Hill now ahead. in front of more cattle sheds with an of Markenfield, you have a choice of privacy of the residents and DO NOT go The Route continued The Markenfield to Fountains Trail - historical information 13: Turn left onto Whitcliffe Lane, Introduction century and the Wars of the Roses he and some of his relatives fled into following it to the T-junction with Fountains Abbey and Markenfield Hall that we again see a close relationship exile. His wife lived on in the service How Hill Road. Here you can turn left have a long and interlinked history. between the Markenfields and the village and died in poverty. It is the to climb How Hill for the views, or right to Fountains Abbey was founded in 1132, monks of Fountains Abbey. This came family’s decline which we have to thank return along Fountains Lane and the West and the first reference to Markenfield through the political unity of another for the remarkably original condition Gate car park. appears in William the Conqueror’s John de Markenfield and the Fountains the house and moat remain in today. Domesday Book. Interaction began Abbot John Greenwell, in their support 14: To visit How Hill, the former chapel early on in their respective histories, for the Lancastrian claim to the English Fountains Hall of St Michael, cross the road and walk with the Markenfield family making throne. As you walk from the car park along 75 metres left and take a permissive a number of grants, of both land and the Abbey wall, you will be treated to path through a small gate on your money, to the Abbey, in return for After the end of the Wars of the Roses, splendid views of Fountains Hall. This right after a small copse. Climb the spiritual rewards, throughout the 12th however, the two sites again drifted early 17th century Elizabethan country hill bearing right to reach the chapel. and early 13th centuries. For example, apart. In the early sixteenth century house is a Grade 1 listed property. From here there are fine views to Ripon Ralph Le Bret (Le Bret being an old both had their own issues to overcome. Cathedral, York Minster and possibly family name of the Markenfield family) The Markenfields had lost favour The hall was built by Sir Stephen Selby Abbey. It is thought this was a place gave Fountains Abbey 20 acres of land with the Tudor dynasty after playing Proctor; the money to build the house of pilgrimage in medieval times (because for himself and his family to become a part in the Pilgrimage of Grace, a came by marriage and some of the of the views of 3 religious buildings). ‘sharers in the brotherhood of the rebellion against the dissolution of stone to construct the Hall came Look also for the Yorkshire Moors and church of Fountains and the prayers the monasteries in 1536. Shortly after from the nearby Abbey. Proctor even the White Horse to the NW. Return to and benefits of the Cistercian Order’. this Fountains itself became a victim relocated an entire staircase from the How Hill Road, by walking down hill Early residents of Markenfield, gave of the dissolution when, in 1539, the Abbey to his new home. on the other side, to the left of How large tracts of land, and some money in then Abbot of Fountains, Marmaduke Hill Cottages, and then right past the return for the Fountains monks saying Bradley, along with his monks, The hall has had many uses since its cottages to the road. Turn left and prayers for the family, or, occasionally, surrendered the Abbey to Henry VIII’s construction, including stately home, follow the road back to the car park. interment in the abbey’s burial ground. forces. courthouse, estate employee’s lodging and farmer’s house. Today it is owned In 1410 Markenfield even provided th This walk route has been prepared by refuge to the ousted Abbot of Fountains During the 16 century the Markenfield and managed by the National Trust and the Historic Parks and Gardens Study Abbey, Roger Frank. family fell from favour with the royal some rooms are open to the visitors to Group with support from Nidderdale household after their involvement Fountains Abbey and Studley Royal. AONB and in collaboration with the In the period after 1230 dealings in a series of rebellions. After the The rest is still tenanted being holiday National Trust and the owners and between Fountains and Markenfield Pilgrimage of Grace, the Markenfield flats and staff accommodation. Friends of Markenfield Hall. took on a more practical, business-like family were lucky to escape the Fountains Abbey tone. Most records we have relate to severe punishment meted out to their transactions of land for money. There contemporaries. However, during the The Abbey itself was founded in 1132, was also some exchanging of supplies. reign of Elizabeth I, in 1569 after the by thirteen monks who had left the Around 1314, John de Markenfield family’s second rebellion against the Benedictine Abbey of St Mary’s in oversaw the construction of a lead new religion, the Markenfields were not York, to live a simpler life in the way of conduit built to convey water from forgiven. Owing to the part Sir Thomas the fast growing Cistercian order. Markenfield Markenfield played in the Rising of the Hall the well-head on monastic land to Continued over .... Markenfield. It is not until the 15th North his lands were confiscated, and The Markenfield to Fountains Trail - historical information continued The Abbey The Abbey Wall and Mackershaw After the Markenfields’ lands were The purpose of the chapel is unclear. expanded quickly throughout the 12th Lodge confiscated they were awarded to Was it for celebrations, the reception of and 13th centuries, amassing huge The Abbey wall dates back to the Laurence Meres MP. Later they passed pilgrims or to provide for the spiritual tracts of land from the Lake District construction of the Abbey itself in the to the family of Sir Henry Gates MP needs of the inhabitants of the Vill or to the North Sea. The Abbey, the 12th century. The wall originally stood whose daughter married a member of the servants at the granges of Morker ruins of which we see today, was built at eleven foot or three to four metres the Egerton family. Later it was let out and Haddockstones? It was probably in the 12th century after the previous high. Allowing for the lower average as a tenanted farm house. This situation restored by Abbott Huby and sold after buildings had been burnt down as the height of people who existed at the continued until at least 1761, when the the dissolution. result of an external dispute concerning time of its construction the wall would hall was bought by Fletcher Norton, the archbishopric. Fountains Abbey have stood at roughly double the height later ennobled as Lord Grantley, the The site was bequeathed to John became a large and important abbey in of most people. The wall, therefore, direct descendant of the Sir Richard Aislabie in 1716 by the Rev Robert . However, it was not immune gave the Abbey an immediate sense of Norton, uncle of the last Sir Thomas Weelks, rector of Goldsborough, in to changes throughout the 14th century importance and power in the eyes of the Markenfield. For the Grantley family exchange for providing a dowry for his and went into decline. In addition, the surrounding populations. Markenfield remained as a tenanted daughter and settling his debts. community of monks had been affected farmhouse as part of it is today. In the externally by the Black Death arriving Set into the wall part way round this 1980s restoration began in earnest The tower was erected by John Aislabie in England in 1348. Furthermore, by walk is an archway. This is an entrance on the mediaeval hall and it is now in 1718 who used it as a banqueting this time in English history, monasteries to the Abbey grounds, but also existed occupied by a descendant of the family. house and a prominent feature of his were beginning to be seen as outdated to provide access to Mackershaw garden design. institutions and people were beginning Lodge. Mackershaw Lodge was used The reason why Markenfield remains so to look elsewhere, often to their parish both as an estate worker’s house, and close to its original design of the 1300s church for spiritual benefits, as opposed gatehouse throughout the 19th and early is because, unlike other large manor to the monasteries. This is illustrated by 20th centuries. houses, there was no ambitious owner to “improve” the house, or, as often the behaviour of the Markenfields who In the 20th century Markenfield Hall Markenfield Hall happened, knock it down and construct no longer made donations for spiritual and Fountains Abbey have undergone Markenfield Hall is a beautiful, and a large country house or stately home rewards. programmes of restoration and extremely rare, fortified mediaeval in its place. This was the fate of most conservation. English Heritage has . The owner of the hall manor houses in England dating from Fountains Abbey did experience some given a Grade 1 listing to Markenfield th th received a licence to crenellate in 1310. the 14th century, making Markenfield revival in the late 15 and early 16 Hall. In 1986, the Fountains Abbey and The Markenfields were a prominent Hall one of only a handful of such centuries, when its community grew Studley Royal estate was recognised as and important family in the Northern houses which still exist. from just thirty three monks to around a World Heritage Site. eighty, reaching somewhat near its pre- nobility, and had close relations with the plague level. However, this resurgence Percy family, the most important noble How Hill – Chapel of St Michael the was swiftly ended during the reign family in the north of England. Archangel of Henry VIII, when the Abbot of According to Walbran the earliest th Fountains surrendered the Abbey at the However during the 16 century the mention of a chapel is 1346. A dissolution of the monasteries in 1539. family fell from favour with the royal document of that date grants 100 days household after their involvement in a indulgences to anyone leaving gifts for series of rebellions. the maintenance of the chapel.