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Here we are Staying at Fountains Abbey I have wanted to do this since last year when we stayed in Galphay. Our Abbey Stores are just lovely we have a minstrel gallery upstairs where we have our bed and bathroom. It is a shame on the first day we have turned it into a laundry with our washing hanging in every free space as we have a washing machine for the first time in over a week but no drier!! We meet up with Dorothy and Clive. They came to visit “the laundry” and then we took the car and drove around the grounds of the Abbey, we can do that as it is after hours and we have a key to the grounds. Grouse where everywhere it was difficult not to drive over them. We got out and went up the hill to the Chapel checking out the deer, Clive kept telling me how dangerous they can be. So I did not like to turn my back except for the photo which he took and then pretended a deer was coming for me. It wasn’t!! On the way back out of the grounds we saw a few pheasant as well as 100’s of grouse and a few squirrels.
Walked around the grounds first thing in the morning. I wanted to see the mill but of course got chatting to the lady outside and found out lots of interesting things but did not see the mill. Fountains Mill is one of the oldest buildings on the estate and was in continuous use until 1927. Fountains Mill was built by the Cistercians in the 12th-century to grind grain for the monastery. It survived the closure of the Abbey and continued to mill grain right up to 1927. In its long history, the building has also been a monastic granary, a timber sawmill, a home for refugees, and a mason’s workshop. When the mill was  in 2001, some very old graffiti was found.
We caught up with Barrie, Pat and Chris Dunn in the Galphay Pub. All the locals where there and it was fun catching up with them all. Not much has changed at the Galphay pub, But all still good fun.
Barrie, Pat and Chris have not been to Fountains Abbey so we did the full tour, visiting the Church which is really gorgeous I have lots of photos from last year (on last year’s website). The decided to wait until after hours to see the rest. It was great seeing it all as the sun went done, great light for photography.
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Fountains Abbey - Yorkshire

A day trip to Ripley was fun. The village was owned by the Ingleby’s for many centuries, their coat of arms is a boar. The first Lord Ingleby got his knighthood by saving the king from a boar attack. As this is school holidays the village had decorated the whole place with stuffed scarecrows as Boar’s. There were many of them to be found and photographed. The village is also famous for not having a pub for many years as one of the Lord Ingleby’s thought that the farmhands going from Church to the pub on a Sunday was not a good thing so he told the landlords (his tenants) that they had to close on Sundays, in response they all left the village. There is a pub now it opened about 60 years ago. The family still lives in the castle and we did the tour. It was very interesting.

Abbey Stores

Fountains Abbey 

Boars of Ingleby House

18 th August - 24 th August 2017

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