Qualla: Studley Royal Park https://qualla.com/studley-royal-park en-us © 2026 Bendyline Mon, 20 Jul 2026 10:21:24 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/w/g/studley-royal-park-wp/hero-small.webp Qualla: Studley Royal Park https://qualla.com/studley-royal-park Studley Royal Park: Introduction https://qualla.com/studley-royal-park/ Photo credit CC BY-SA 2.5. By 1726, approximately a hundred men were at work digging canals and shaping ponds in a Yorkshire valley that had already been a landscape garden for nearly a hundred and fifty years. Christopher Saxton's 1577 map of Yorkshire shows the enclosed park as it existed under earlier owners. The Aislabie family - first John, disgraced by the South Sea Bubble and exiled from London politics, then his son William - turned that valley into something unprecedented: a designed water garden built around the ruins of a Cistercian abbey dissolved by Henry VIII. The result, now jointly listed by UNESCO with Fountains Abbey, is the most fully realised example of the English water garden style still surviving anywhere in the country.

Read more: Studley Royal Park on Qualla

Image: CC BY-SA 2.5

]]> Fri, 29 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/w/g/studley-royal-park-wp/gcwg-studley-royal-park-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full Studley Royal Park: Politics of a Garden https://qualla.com/studley-royal-park/ Photo credit SMJ, CC BY-SA 2.0. John Aislabie was Chancellor of the Exchequer when the South Sea Bubble collapsed in 1720. Censured, expelled from Parliament, banned from public office, he came home to Studley with nothing left to do except remake the landscape. The political wound is everywhere in the design. ...

Read more: Studley Royal Park on Qualla

Image: SMJ | CC BY-SA 2.0

]]> Fri, 29 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/w/g/studley-royal-park-wp/gcwg-studley-royal-park-politics-of-a-garden.mp3 0:06 2 full Studley Royal Park: The Borrowed Ruin https://qualla.com/studley-royal-park/ Photo credit Martin Dawes, CC BY-SA 2.0. What sets Studley apart from every other Georgian water garden is the ruin at the end of the walk. Fountains Abbey, founded in 1132 by Cistercian monks and dissolved by Henry VIII in 1539, sits on the western side of the estate. The Aislabies acquired Fountains in 1767 and incorp...

Read more: Studley Royal Park on Qualla

Image: Martin Dawes | CC BY-SA 2.0

]]> Fri, 29 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/w/g/studley-royal-park-wp/gcwg-studley-royal-park-the-borrowed-ruin.mp3 0:06 3 full Studley Royal Park: The Burges Church https://qualla.com/studley-royal-park/ Photo credit Bs0u10e01, CC BY-SA 4.0. Above the park stands St Mary's Church, an 1870s commission by the family of the 1st Marquess of Ripon. The reason is harrowing: their son Frederick Grantham Vyner had been kidnapped and killed in Greece in 1870, one of four hostages taken by brigands near Marathon in what became...

Read more: Studley Royal Park on Qualla

Image: Bs0u10e01 | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Fri, 29 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/w/g/studley-royal-park-wp/gcwg-studley-royal-park-the-burges-church.mp3 0:06 4 full Studley Royal Park: What Remains, What Changes https://qualla.com/studley-royal-park/ Photo credit Jonathan Wilkins, CC BY-SA 2.0. The Vyner family sold the estate after the Second World War; the upkeep had become impossible. The National Trust took over the water garden in 1983 and joined it with Fountains under joint management. St Mary's is owned by the State and managed by the Trust under local agreement...

Read more: Studley Royal Park on Qualla

Image: Jonathan Wilkins | CC BY-SA 2.0

]]> Fri, 29 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/w/g/studley-royal-park-wp/gcwg-studley-royal-park-what-remains-what-changes.mp3 0:06 5 full