At our last lunch until the autumn, our speaker, Justin Scully, brought us up to date with a number of matters regarding Fountains Abbey and Studley Royal. He said that, as General Manager, he was not a “specialist”. His role was to make the place financially sustainable. Deciding how to protect it but at the same time bringing more money in. There is other income: from 14 holiday cottages, and also from film companies which has included some filming of “All Creatures Great and Small”.
Visitors were welcomed to the Abbey as long as 200 years ago. Later, visitors would travel to Ripon by train and there would be a horse and carriage service to Fountains.
Justin talked about the Banqueting House which was being repainted inside after removing many layers of paint that had been applied over the years and had covered so much detail of the decoration. He talked about the mystery of the Dying Gladiator statue. The original completely disappeared from the water garden in the late 1800s. No-one ever discovered how, but, thanks to the generous support of visitors and the local community, £82,000 was raised in 2018-19 to cast a new Dying Gladiator.
F&B (food and beverage) outlets took £32 a minute during Easter Weekend, 2023. They serve 42,000 scones a year and 11,000 toilet rolls are used! But, although FASR (Fountains Abbey and Studley Royal) has shown 15% visitor growth in recent years, other NT properties show more; others are far more accessible by public transport and/or show more population growth in the area.
The “Studley Revealed” project aims to improve visitor facilities at the Studley entrance. It will help to tell the important story of this World Heritage site and will make improvements to a busy area of the water garden, creating a more accessible café, admission point, toilets, etc. We look forward to enjoying it further in the years to come.