Every October, Fountains Abbey open its gates on Friday and Saturday evenings to allow visitors to appreciate the site as the sun sets, darkness falls, the Abbey is illuminated by floodlight, choirs sing in the Cellarium, and a flotilla of food trucks cater to most tastes.
This year, there was another attraction: a lightshow telling the story of the Abbey, from its early days as a simple place of a life of prayer for a few devout monks; through its successful days as an important religious and wool-trading centre; to its dissolution by Henry VIII; its re-emergence as part of an 18th century water garden; and finally, as a UNESCO World Heritage site managed by the National Trust. All that history, colourfully and dramatically brought to life in 10 minutes or so, projected on repeat throughout the evening! It was magnificent, and a wonderful window on the past. If you live near enough and fancy this kind of evening out, there are two further weekends this October. Find out all about it here.
If the windows shown here aren’t obvious enough, here’s one more:
For Ludwig’s Monday Window, hosted this week by PR
PS. Radio silence for a while, apart from the odd virtual postcard. Off on a rail trip to visit Team Spain, then on to our old haunts in France for a few days before chugging our way home.
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