Fountains Abbey Fountains Abbey Fountains Abbey is one of the largest and best preserved ruined Cistercian monasteries in England. It is located approximately south-west of Ripon in North Yorkshire, near to the village of Aldfield. Founded in 1132, the abbey operated for 407 years becoming one of the wealthiest monasteries in England until its dissolution in 1539 under the order of Henry VIII. The abbey is a Grade I listed building owned by the National Trust and part of the designated Studley Royal Park including the Ruins of Fountains Abbey UNESCO World Heritage Site. After a dispute and riot in 1132 at
Cistercian nuns Ivrea, and that of Conversano, the only one in the peninsula in which the abbesses carry a crosier. A century later the Cistercian nuns had established houses in Switzerland, Germany (St. Marienthal Abbey in 1234), and Flanders. The decline which manifested itself in the communities of monks of the Cistercian Order towards the middle of the fourteenth century was felt also in the monasteries of nuns. It was at this time that the Conceptionist Order was founded in Toledo, Spain, by Beatrice of Silva. Her nuns were quick to abandon the Cistercian Rule for that of the Poor Clares. In