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The Medieval deer park pale surrounding Fountains Park is a fragmentary earthwork monument located in North Yorkshire near the Cistercian abbey of Fountains Abbey. Dating to the Medieval period, the pale consists of a substantial bank and ditch that once formed the boundary of an enclosed deer park, a form of aristocratic landscape management common among monasteries and nobility from the twelfth century onwards. The surviving sections of the earthwork demonstrate the scale of investment required to maintain such parks, which served both as sources of venison and as symbols of status and control over the surrounding landscape. The pale represents an important example of how Fountains Abbey, as a major ecclesiastical institution, extended its economic exploitation and territorial authority across the surrounding countryside beyond the abbey precinct itself.
Medieval deer park pale surrounding Fountains Park is a scheduled monument protected by Historic England under reference 1020120. View the official record →
The Medieval deer park pale surrounding Fountains Park is a fragmentary earthwork monument located in North Yorkshire near the Cistercian abbey of Fountains Abbey. It is designated a Scheduled Ancient Monument by Historic England (NHLE) under reference 1020120.
Medieval deer park pale surrounding Fountains Park is a Scheduled Ancient Monument, legally protected by Historic England (NHLE) — the body responsible for designating and safeguarding heritage sites in England. The official designation reference is 1020120.
Several scheduled monuments lie within 10 km, including Medieval monastic fishponds immediately east of Park House (0.4 km), Medieval monastic grange and site of medieval settlement at Ninevah (0.8 km), Site of medieval chapel and section of Fountains Park park pale, 170m south west of How Hill Farm (1 km).
This page is just one thread. A full Aubrey report pulls together 15 strands of Medieval deer park pale surrounding Fountains Park's history, each drawn from the record and mapped to the exact spot:
Every location is different. Not every section appears for every place, only what the historical record actually holds turns up in a report.
Medieval deer park pale surrounding Fountains Park stands on Millstone Grit Group [See Also Migr], bedrock that formed in the Namurian. The rock here is mudstone, siltstone and sandstone.