fountains abbey & studley royal...or natural significance which is so exceptional as to...

World Heritage Site Management Plan Progress Report July 2019

Fountains Abbey & Studley Royal

Welcome

World Heritage Management Plan Progress Report July 20192

Our World Heritage Site Management Plan is now in its fourth year and this progress report celebrates the work of the National Trust and our partners over the last year.

In September 2018 we had the great news that our first round bid to the National Lottery Heritage Fund for the Skell Valley Project had been successful. We worked closely with Nidderdale Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB) and communities living and working along the river to develop a range of projects to manage flood risk, improve water quality and habitats for wildlife and restore neglected historic buildings and landscapes. The project will also extend links between Ripon and the communities upstream to improve access and explore the stories which have shaped the landscape. The National Lottery grant helps fund a project manager and community participation assistant who over the next year will be working closely with farmers, landowners and local groups to develop those project ideas further.

Along with our focus on delivering conservation projects in the World Heritage Site we’ve been developing a set of draft attributes of the Outstanding Universal Value of the World Heritage Site to help manage and protect the site. We are also delighted to see progress on the Ripon Neighbourhood Plan and Harrogate District Local Plan, both of which include policies to protect the World Heritage Site and its setting.

Infrastructure continues to be a major challenge. Our car parks, ticket offices, toilets and café areas have been struggling to cope with the growing number of visitors. Following the refurbishment of the visitor centre this year our big focus for 2019/20 is the Studley Lake entrance.

We couldn’t deliver any of this without the support of our partners, local communities, visitors and the staff and volunteers who help care for the World Heritage Site.

Sarah France World Heritage Site Co-ordinator

Tony Earnshaw Chair of the World Heritage Site Steering Group

World Heritage Management Plan Progress Report July 2019 3

Who we are

The World Heritage Site is managed with the support and advice of the World Heritage Site Steering Group.

Tony Earnshaw — Assistant Director Operations, North Region, National Trust and Chair of the Steering Group

Justin Scully — General Manager, Fountains Abbey and Studley Royal, National Trust

Keith Emerick — Inspector of Ancient Monuments, Historic England

Mark Douglas — Properties Curator, English Heritage Trust

Liz Small — Heritage Services Manager, North Yorkshire County Council

Peter Goodchild — International Council on Monuments and Sites

Tracey Rathmell — Executive Officer Policy and Place, Harrogate Borough Council

The abbey cellarium

Temple of Piety

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Defining the attributes of the World Heritage Site

All World Heritage Sites have Outstanding Universal Value (OUV). This is a cultural and/or natural significance which is so exceptional as to transcend national boundaries and to be of common importance for all humanity. The Statement of Outstanding Universal Value (SOUV) for Studley Royal Park, including the ruins of Fountains Abbey World Heritage Site was approved by the UNESCO World Heritage Committee in 2012.

The SOUV informs all our decisions on the conservation and management of the World Heritage Site. A full copy can be viewed on our website: nationaltrust.org.uk/fountainsabbeywhs

What are attributes?

Attributes are the qualities that express the OUV of the World Heritage Site and which contribute to and enhance understanding of the OUV. They can be physical qualities or fabric but can also be processes associated with a property that impact on physical qualities.

The key purpose of identifying attributes is so they can be protected, managed and monitored. They are needed for assessing the impact of planning proposals on the OUV of the World Heritage Site and when developing project ideas and other interventions.

The list of attributes is not intended to be a full description and history of the designed landscape at Studley Royal and Fountains Abbey.

Theme 1: Overall Management Approach

‘ Situated in North Yorkshire, the 18th century designed landscape of Studley Royal water garden and pleasure grounds, including the ruins of Fountains Abbey, is one harmonious whole of buildings, gardens and landscapes. This landscape of exceptional merit and beauty represents over 800 years of human ambition, design and achievement.’

World Heritage Management Plan Progress Report July 2019 A landscape garden of exceptional beauty and harmony

Attributes for Fountains Abbey and Studley Royal World Heritage Site

Historic England, the National Trust and Harrogate Borough Council have compiled a set of draft attributes of the Outstanding Universal Value of the World Heritage Site. The next stage will be to identify a set of components of each attribute to help understand them further.

5World Heritage Management Plan Progress Report July 2019

The draft attributes are:

— A landscape garden of exceptional beauty and harmony

— The ruins of Fountains Abbey

— Accretion of designed landscape which enhances the natural landscape

— Immaculately designed views and vistas using the landscape both within and beyond the boundaries of the garden

— Range of buildings illustrating patronage, status and influence

The attributes also extend beyond the boundary of the World Heritage Site. Designed views and vistas extend across the surrounding landscape and to distant landmarks such as Ripon Cathedral and Blois Hall Farm. The World Heritage Site inscription only covers part of a greater designed landscape which extends beyond current World Heritage Site boundaries and includes How Hill prospect tower, Spa Gill landscaped carriage drive and Chinese Wood, a large and early Chinese Garden.

How can you help?

We’ll be doing a formal consultation on the draft attributes on our website over the summer. We’ll be seeking your views on:

— Whether the attributes we’ve identified are the right ones

— Help identifying any attributes we’ve missed

— Putting together a list of key components for each attribute

Our website address is: nationaltrust.org.uk/fountainsabbeywhs

The ruins of Fountains Abbey

Range of buildings illustrating patronage, status and influence — Octagon Tower

6 World Heritage Management Plan Progress Report July 2019

Visitor infrastructure improvements

The visitor centre, first opened in 1992, is an Edward Cullinan designed, award winning building. It combines a modern aesthetic with traditional building materials of stone, steel, lead, glass and wood. Since 1992, internal alterations have responded to the business needs of the property, the latest of which have been a series of changes to the admissions area, retail, offices, restaurant and toilets.

Our visitor centre restaurant needed a modern refresh and better infrastructure to improve visitor flow on busy days. Acoustic baffles have helped to reduce the echoes and the seating areas are more clearly defined.

For the first time an item from the collection has been introduced to the space: the remains of a classical sculpture of Priapus, rediscovered in 1995 in one of the garden valleys and kept in storage for many years. Priapus was the protector of gardens and a god of fertility and is part of the collection of eighteenth century lead and stone statuary from the gardens at Studley Royal, being introduced in the 1730s. The statue formerly stood behind the Banqueting House, along the family’s private route to and from the gardens. Priapus was one of several features on this side of the garden which evoked a more sensory atmosphere. The limestone statue has been cleaned and mounted by Cliveden Conservation to enable us to bring this piece of the gardens to the visitor centre.

The next big challenge, and one which was tested this Easter, is improving traffic flow and capacity in our car parks. We’ve now submitted the first stage of planning permission for an extension to the overflow car park to provide additional parking spaces. We hope that the project will start in September.

Our team set a new record over Easter by recruiting 113 National Trust members in one day. The week as a whole also broke a record; for the first time Fountains Abbey and Studley Royal welcomed more than 20,000 visitors in one week, making it the third busiest pay for entry property in the Trust. As a charity we rely on the income from members and supporters to fund our conservation work and the income generated by every visit, cup of tea and purchase in the shop helps us to look after the World Heritage Site.

Easter weekend 2019 in numbers

Visitors: 18,254

Memberships purchased: 405

Food and beverage sales: £65,337

Retail sales: £19,042

Holiday cottages: fully booked

The newly refurbished restaurant

The redesigned welcome area


The Ripon Neighbourhood Plan

We work with the community to ensure policies are in place to protect the World Heritage Site and its setting.

After several years’ work the Ripon Neighbourhood Plan (previously the Ripon City Plan) was supported at referendum on 14th February by 86.75% of those people voting. Harrogate Borough Council formally ‘made’ the Plan on 10th April and it now forms part of the Statutory Local Plan for Harrogate for the purposes of development management decisions in the parish of Ripon City. The Plan includes complementary projects to help deliver its policies and community actions. Ripon Together, which is a City-wide partnership of stakeholders, is seen as an agent for implementing these projects.

— Rachel Wigginton Ripon Civic Society

Key policies and actions in the Neighbourhood Plan relevant to the World Heritage Site

— Landscape Character Policy — development should protect the landscape setting of Ripon in the River Ure, Skell and Laver Valleys

— Skyline Policy — protects views into, across and beyond the City, including in the WHS buffer zone, by controlling the height and impact of development on the existing skyline

— Clotherhome Community Action — support for a new urban village on the military estate that includes protection of the natural environment and landscape, taking account of the Nidderdale Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty

— Policy supporting tourism by encouraging new hotels and protecting existing ones

— Policy and action plan to protect and improve footpaths

— Policy, cycling strategy and action plan to support facilities for cyclists and the provision of cycle paths

— Policy to support the provision of facilities for people with mobility impairments

— Bus connectivity improvement plan

— Car park improvement and capacity study

— Park and Ride feasibility and viability study

— River bank habitat improvement and management plan.

Lime avenue looking towards Ripon Cathedral

8

Bringing back the Dying Gladiator

Part of the wider World Heritage Site plan is to return the Studley Royal water gardens to their full Georgian glory. The statues within John and William Aislabie’s garden were amongst some of the most spectacular features, along with the geometric ponds and canals, designed vistas and garden buildings. The first phase is complete: we have reinstated the white painted finish — emulating marble — to the statues in front of the Temple of Piety and the moon ponds. The next step is to return some of the lost statues to the garden so that the original garden scheme is complete. The first of these will be the Dying Gladiator — an iconic figure seen in gardens across the world, copied from antiquity in the eighteenth century and sought by English aristocrats wanting to bring a piece of the classical world to their gardens back home.

The earliest documentary evidence for statues in the gardens is a reference to ‘pedestals for figures’ made in 1724. The first reference to the actual Dying Gladiator statue is in Dorothy Richardson’s journal from 1771. During late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries many features of the garden, including the Dying Gladiator, were unfortunately lost — possibly through theft but more likely, a lack of maintenance. By the 1891 edition of the OS map the statue was no longer referenced.

The project has been funded through public appeal, a private donor and on-site fundraising activities and will cost approximately £87,000. We have taken a mould of a Dying Gladiator statue from another eighteenth century garden. This mould will be recast in lead by a sculpture conservation specialist and mounted on a plinth made by a stone mason. The statue will then be painted white to match the other statues in the garden and placed in its original location near the moon ponds.

Future fundraising priorities will continue to be focused on our conservation work in the garden, including reinstating the planters and seating around the moon ponds, recreating the gravelled scalloping set within the lawns and replanting the yew hedges in the gardens.

Theme 2: Conservation & Environmental Performance

World Heritage Management Plan Progress Report July 2019

Taking a mould of the Dying Gladiator statue


Collections & Project Curator role

In February 2019, we employed Helen Fawbert, formerly House and Collections Manager for 12 years at Knole, Kent, as our Project Curator. Helen’s remit for the next year covers a range of projects to improve the care and display of the collections and interiors of Fountains Hall and the garden buildings of Studley Royal.

To date, the collection of physical objects, including decorative architectural features, has made only a limited contribution to the recognised significances of the archaeologically — and historically — rich landscape of Studley Royal and Fountains Abbey. However, this atypical and eclectic collection can be used to tell the story of this multifaceted site. The collection includes a small but significant collection of eighteenth century statuary, furniture, works on paper, books, archaeological material and ephemera. One of the projects is to add to and improve the Collections Management System to fully assess the collection and conservation obligations that the property has. Through research Helen will also be looking at new ways to care for and present the garden buildings, statuary and the interiors of Fountains Hall.

The Banqueting House


Update on the Skell Valley Project

Following a successful resubmission to the National Lottery Heritage Fund, the Skell Valley Project got the go-ahead in December 2018 to start an 18 month development phase.

Along with our main partner Nidderdale Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB), we appointed a Project Manager earlier this year to develop the project ideas and commission surveys in preparation for a delivery phase bid which we will submit in June 2020.

The development phase funding has also allowed us to appoint a Community Participation Assistant who will work with both rural communities upstream of Fountains Abbey and Studley Royal and residents of the City of Ripon downstream.

So far, the project has made good headway by setting up a number of working groups relating to the project’s main themes and hosting its first Advisory Group meeting.

We have commissioned training for volunteers who will be undertaking a rights of way survey in the valley so that this baseline data can be used to develop trails. We are also providing training for volunteers through the Freshwater Habitats Trust on water quality to help build up a picture of the River Skell’s current condition.

Working with the community, we hope to foster a sense of pride and healthy respect for the river and we are about to commission an interpretation strategy which will help people access, explore and enjoy the Skell Valley.

The project team has got a busy summer ahead with lots more events planned over the summer months to engage with the communities upstream and downstream of the World Heritage Site. This includes two workshops which will be held in July: one for researchers and academics and one for landowners and farmers, to look at what we can do collectively in the valley to improve the health of the river.

More information about the project can be found on our website at nationaltrust.org.uk/Skellvalleyproject

Eavestone Lake


Working with farmers along the River Skell

Over the past two years we’ve been working with farmers and landowners within the River Skell catchment thanks to a grant from the Countryside Stewardship Facilitation Fund. This is part of our wider work with Nidderdale AONB on the Skell Valley Project to alleviate flooding, improve water quality and bring about lots more benefits for the area.

The grant funds a ‘facilitator’ to co-ordinate a series of workshops for farmers and landowners on a variety of topics. Our facilitator is Marian Wilby, Land Management Team Leader at Nidderdale AONB. Marian has been busy over the past couple of years building up the farmer network within the river catchment and organising workshops; all with the aim of realising the benefits of a joined-up approach to land management rather than on a single-farm scale.

The group is going from strength to strength and currently has 22 members. We are now entering our last year of funding with a full year of workshops ahead that will explore topics including sphagnum inoculation and river bank restoration.

Environmental Performance

Energy efficiency and reduction of waste to landfill have continued to be a focus for us. We have replaced many of our night storage heaters across the estate with efficient, programmable electric heaters and have installed a new building management system at the visitor centre allowing greater control of our heating systems. Running alongside our energy efficiency work we have started feasibility work for two renewable heating systems on the estate — Choristers Holiday Cottage (oil to biomass) and Studley Tea Room (LPG to heat pump).

During 2018 we diverted 96% of our waste from landfill. A large percentage was recycled and the majority of our food waste was separated and sent to an anaerobic digestion plant. We have also been working hard to reduce our single use plastic by eliminating plastic straws and water bottles in our catering outlets, selling many of our plants in compostable plant pots and installing two new drinking water fountains at the visitor centre.

Some of the topics the workshops are focussing on include:

— Water — exploring how techniques such as tree planting, management of existing woodlands, woody debris dams and soil management can mitigate flooding.

— Priority habitats — looking at ways to enhance the potential of land for biodiversity such as joining up fragmented habitats and highlighting areas to enhance for wild bird populations.

— Historic environment — identifying undesignated features of the historic environment connected to Fountains Abbey and Studley Royal World Heritage Site in the surrounding landscape.

Members of the group looking at Natural Flood Management in practice at a nearby farm


folly!

Last year we saw Trust New Art programme folly! in the water garden. With Charles Holland’s Polly sitting atop Tent Hill, Lucy Orta’s The Gazing Ball on the Rotunda and Fleafolly’s The Listening Tower at the Bathing House there was plenty of opportunity to show visitors a lesser known part of Studley Royal’s story. School architecture workshops engaged local communities in the programme with Carter Foster’s design of the Cloud winning out of 1,800 entries. It’s fair to say that folly! 2018 divided opinions but there was much evidence that folly! helped visitors understand the history of the gardens.

While details of folly! 2020 are still under wraps, the programme is well underway for its fourth year. It will be the biggest and boldest folly! yet.

FleaFolly’s The Listening Tower


Interpretation refresh at Fountains Mill

Fountains Mill is often missed by visitors due to its tucked away location. However, it’s an important part of the landscape of Fountains Abbey and Studley Royal and has a significant role to play in the story of the estate.

This year we have updated the interpretation at the mill to tell the stories of the people who worked at the mill and those who provided the grain and raw materials for milling over its 800 year period as a working building.

The mill was an essential part of monastic life, enabling the Cistercians to provide for the entire monastic community. The milling process allowed the lay brothers to then brew their own ale and make their own bread in the nearby brewhouse and bakehouse. The interpretation explores the industrial aspects of monastic life, and through sound brings an atmosphere of work and activity to the spaces as visitors explore.

Enhancing the Studley Lake entrance to the gardens

Plans to transform the eastern entrance to the water garden and provide world class facilities for our visitors continue, with a view to completing the project in 2020/21.

This area of the garden has provided a formal entrance for people since the early 18th century and the 19th century addition of a tea room is now struggling to cater for the 21st century visitor. Over time, several ad hoc additions to the tea room have cluttered up this part of the landscape, detracting from its situation in a World Heritage Site.

The aim of this project is not only to create a visitor experience that lives up to our World Heritage status but to reflect this area of the garden’s historic significance.

This is a substantial £2.5m project and we are delighted to have appointed Feilden Fowles as architects for this project. Feilden Fowles are an exciting architectural practice whose latest project is The Weston at Yorkshire Sculpture Park.

Communicating World Heritage & Durham University placement

‘ Fountains Abbey and Studley Royal is trying to improve understanding of World Heritage amongst visitors — many (particularly domestic visitors) don’t know we’re a World Heritage Site! As part of my Masters degree at Durham University, I am undertaking a placement project for the World Heritage Site all about how World Heritage is communicated to visitors. This has involved looking at all the aspects a visitor sees before and during a visit to the site, to determine how well the concept of World Heritage status is put across. The best part of this project has been getting to visit other World Heritage Sites in the UK, like Blenheim Palace and the Giant’s Causeway! Seeing how much communication of World Heritage varies across sites has been so interesting, and I’m excited to give recommendations to Fountains Abbey and Studley Royal on what works best.’

Rosie Dods Durham University student

Theme 3: Access, Enjoyment & Understanding

Studley Tea Room


National Trust & World Heritage

The National Trust manages in whole or in part eight of the UK’s World Heritage Sites. This makes the National Trust the organisation that is responsible for the most World Heritage Sites in the UK. In early 2018 Fountains Abbey and Studley Royal hosted a meeting of the General Managers responsible for those sites along with colleagues from regional and national teams, and there was a second meeting of this group in Bath in late 2018 chaired by the North’s Regional Director Mike Innerdale.

Helped in part by the recent designation of the Lakes as a World Heritage Site, this small group has developed a powerful voice in representing the importance of World Heritage in the busy internal world of the National Trust.

As well as sharing knowledge and learning between our teams, this group has been considering issues from a common way of presenting our World Heritage Site branding to the issues many sites face of ‘over tourism’.

We have and will continue to work very closely with our colleagues at Giant’s Causeway. As the two World Heritage Sites wholly owned by the National Trust, and as two of the five most visited pay for entry sites in the National Trust, there are many synergies between the two properties. In 2019 we’ll look at making this relationship more structured (almost a ‘twinning’) with a view to developing the knowledge and skills of our respective staff and volunteers learning from each other’s responses to the challenges and opportunities in the external world, and sharing skills with other World Heritage Sites.

The Giant’s Causeway

World Heritage UK

We have continued to work actively with World Heritage UK, which is the organisation set up in 2015 to undertake networking, advocacy and promotion for the UK’s World Heritage Sites.

From supporting the first ever leaflet that maps all the UK World Heritage Sites to taking part in national conferences, being part of this network allows us to look beyond the boundaries of our own World Heritage Site to learn and share from others.

There have been some tangible results of this work: opportunities for staff development, academic placements from Durham and Ironbridge, new marketing opportunities to overseas visitors (working collaboratively with the other ‘Northern’ World Heritage Sites) as well as opportunities to engage with government and other agencies.

World Heritage UK are working on a comprehensive review of the state of the UK’s World Heritage Sites for launch in autumn 2019. We have been happy to support this work, and this reinforces our ambition to be an exemplar World Heritage Site.

International links

An emerging theme in 2019 that we will develop as we move into the next management plan, and a theme that is emerging in the Trust as a whole, is one of ‘Everyone Welcome’ — thinking about how we are relevant to everyone in the UK, not just members and those who live geographically close to a National Trust property. For Fountains Abbey and Studley Royal this takes two themes: firstly moving away from heritage celebrating ‘hard power’ (i.e. telling stories about ‘great men’, the conquest of nature and imperial architecture for example) to the ‘soft power’ of communities and society.

In that sense, what we choose to preserve tells us about who we are — creating continuity and identity. This relates very strongly to our ambition to tell the many layers of stories of Fountains Abbey and Studley Royal — if our 600,000 strong ‘community of visitors’ only think of us as a ruined abbey (no matter how grand) then we’ve failed.

But telling this story can be really difficult — how do we tell stories that are difficult and that people may not want to hear or don’t understand? (or perhaps ‘just want to have a nice day out!’). We have been working with a number of other institutions in the country (among them organisations as diverse as York Minister and The National Archives) with a consultancy called New Citizenship to think (rather grandly!) about what our role is in building cultural understanding amongst diverse communities. This thinking of course ties into the wider mission of UNESCO and World Heritage which is about very much more than simply being a badge of honour.

The second theme is to continue, albeit on a small scale, to make links internationally and to host visits. This year we have attended the International Conference of National Trusts, have worked with the Bermuda World Heritage Site and Monticello in the US as well as hosting a visit from a number of European heritage sites.

Of course these are good connections, especially in the area of World Heritage, and we have much knowledge and expertise to offer, but also, particularly when we want to look beyond the physical boundaries of the World Heritage Site, sometimes we need to be provoked out of our normal lives, by sharing skills, questioning our own assumptions and learning humbly for the best globally.

Theme 4: Community Links & Partnerships


International National Trusts Organisation conference in Bermuda

We hope you enjoyed this report about our work. If you’d like to find out more information then please visit our website: nationaltrust.org.uk/fountainsabbeywhs

If you’d like to be involved in any work listed please contact Sarah France, Fountains Abbey and Studley Royal World Heritage Site Co-ordinator on [email protected]

Front cover image: The Gazing Ball was created by Lucy + Jorge Orta for Fountains Abbey and Studley Royal as part of folly! in 2018. New outdoor artworks were made by a number of contemporary artists to re-imagine lost follies now known only through drawings. This piece is currently on display at Yorkshire Sculpture Park.

Photography: © National Trust Images / Chris Lacey / Marian Wilby / Justin Scully / Rosie Dods / Jonathan Pow / Karen Symonds / John Millar / Joe Cornish / Rupert HarrisDesign: Journal. Printed on FSC certified paper from responsible sources. Please recycle this booklet after use. © National Trust 2019. National Trust is an independent registered charity, no. 205846.

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