Agricultural History Review, Volume 65 Part 1 (2017), p. 149

The wonder of the North offers a landscape history of the famous North Yorkshire property, today a World Heritage Site, owned and managed by the National Trust. Written by Mark Newman, archaeologist at the property since the 1980s, the book is far more than just an account of the making of the famous eighteenth-century gardens laid out by the Aislabie family. Instead, it offers a minutely researched landscape history of several distinct sites including the Studley Royal gardens, Fountains Abbey ruins, Fountains Hall, Swanley and Morker granges, and the minor medieval pilgrimage site at How Hill. Each has a distinct ownership and management history. That the book manages to weave together their diverse stories over more than 1000 years is a considerable achievement.

The first chapter offers brief summaries of the Neolithic, Bronze Age and Romano-British finds across the site, along with a discussion of pre-Conquest occupation of the area based primarily on place names evidence but little in the way of finds. Newman paints an evocative picture of a marginal landscape relatively under-settled, a situation which ‘presented the opportunity – the space – for the remarkable and ultimately unique creations that would be forged here’ (p. 9), even whilst acknowledging that the abbey’s early chroniclers may have exaggerated the extent to which the landscape was empty. Yet any attempt on his part to (re)people the pre-Conquest landscape is rather undone by the lack of archaeological evidence so far discovered at the site.

Where we are on surer ground is from 1132, with the foundation of Fountains Abbey by a group of dissident monks from the Benedictine abbeys at York and Whitby. There follows a history of the abbey which outlines key stages in the development of the buildings within the abbey precinct, as well as changes within the Skell valley where the arable fields and grazing lands of nearby Studlei Magna, woodlands belonging to the archbishop of York and the abbey’s granges all lay cheek-by-jowl. Chapter 3 discusses the end of the abbey community and changes to ownership in the post dissolution period along with the impact of Civil War, while Chapter 4 examines the early history of the Aislabie family who acquired the Studley Royal property through marriage in 1663.

Chapter 5 outlines the programme of land acquisitions and early work on the Studley gardens undertaken by John Aislabie (d. 1742) – the disgraced Chancellor of the Exchequer implicated in the South Sea Bubble, who spent his retirement beautifying Studley – while chapters 6 through 8 explore his son William’s improvements. Together John and William Aislabie produced one of the most famous landscape gardens of the Georgian era which became a regular stopping point on picturesque tours of the North, including that by John Tracy Atkyns of 1732 who referred to Studley as the ‘Wonder of the North’ (p. xi) and gifted Newman his title. William Aislabie died in 1781, leaving his eldest daughter Elizabeth Allanson to inherit the property. She was succeeded by her niece Elizabeth Sophia Lawrence in 1808 and between them the two women held the property for more than six decades, though we know less about their management of the estate than their predecessors’, in part due to a lack of documentation, but also because Allanson, at least, was mostly resident elsewhere.

The final three chapters of the book examine the later nineteenth and twentieth century history of the site, including the loss of Studley Royal House to a fire in 1946 and the National Trust’s purchase of the estate in 1983. There follows a useful bibliography of archival and printed sources and archaeological reports used in the research project, the long list undoubtedly testament to the huge amount of work over many years that has gone into this impressive volume.

The book is beautifully illustrated with a combination of colour and black-and-white plates, which include portraits, landscape sketches, prospects, woodcuts, plans and maps, and copies of original documents. Personal favourites are the stunning portraits of the abbey’s first post-Dissolution owner, Sir Thomas Gresham, and his wife, Anne Fernely, by the Dutch painter Anthonis Mor (Figs 31 and 32). We also benefit from the inclusion of a series of excellent GIS maps, which help orientate the reader and precisely document the various phases of landscape change within the valley.

As for gripes, all of them minor: the book might have benefited from the advice of a geologist and geomorphologist on the sections on topography and hydrology in the opening chapter, and its strictly chronological treatment of its subject matter is occasionally confusing, moving rapidly between the two main properties now in the National Trust’s care. But, overall, The wonder of the North is a beautifully produced and hugely absorbing read. Moreover, it ably demonstrates the potential of ‘deep time’, longue durée approaches – especially those so skilfully integrating archaeological evidence; standing buildings survey; place names; and documentary, visual and cartographic sources – to produce truly excellent landscape history. W. G. Hoskins would, I think, be impressed!