Fountains Hall and Abbey are a kind of bundled deal, but I will just say a few words about the Hall today; the abbey is huge and deserves its own page, I think.
Fountains Hall is really just a couple of rooms in a house that started off life in the Elizabethan era. It has an oriole (balcony) of note, although one can’t use it because the second floor is used for weddings!
The family that owned it during the ware lost a son and a daughter as a missing pilot in the RAF and a victim of a bomb, and there is a sculpture remembering them which you can see as you come out of the house down the stone stairs.
Many visitors may well miss the significance of the memorial as they are not really looking for 20th Century artifacts, but I confess, I was was moved by the tragic story of the loss of their children to the last War. The Vyner Memorial Window inscription is as follows:
"WHEN YOU GO HOME
TELL THEM OF US
AND SAY
FOR YOUR TOMORROW
WE GAVE OUR TODAY
FROM THIS THEIR HOME, THEY WENT TO WAR.
Elizabeth Vyner WRNS - Died on Active Service June 3rd 1942 Aged 18 years. Also her brother Charles De Grey Vyner Sub Lieut (A) RNVR Reported missing from Air Operations Off Rangoon May 2nd 1945 Aged 19 Years."
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