Wednesday 28 May 1834

Fine - Fahrenheit 56 at 8 1/4 - breakfast at 8 1/2 - a little sucking her breasts last night other wise perfectly quiet

Off at 10 1/4, and at Newby hall in 1/2 hour and 3/4 hour there - some handsome Gobelin's tapestry in the drawing room, but nothing worth going to see except the statue gallery in 3 rooms domed and lighted from the top - several good antiques collected in Italy by Mr. Weddell - said to be the finest private collection in England - a fine statue of Brutus, -as also of a sitting muse, but the finest, the Barberini Venus, in the attitude of the Venus de Medicis - 3 fine busts, of Minerva, Jupiter, and Hercules - the horse house merely a good substantial 3 story brick mansion with 2 wings (one the statue gallery) projecting forwards in and from the front of the house - a handsome broad avenue-sort-of approach

Passed thro' Ripon, and alighted at Studley in 55 minutes at 12 25/60 - bought guide book and off with guide at 12 35/60 - the laurel bank (common laurel cut into one even uninterrupted surface about 18 inches high) and the bordered waters kept within borders 'shaven with the scythe and levelled with the roller', and all the prim temples and smooth-cut peeps are far too artificial for me - the little Skell, too, is tortured out of nature save where it steals away amid the ruins and bushes under and behind the abbey to the mill a carriage road from the house (Studley Royal about 2 miles to the Abbey)

Certainly the largest, most perfect, and most beautiful ruin I ever saw - said and probably truly said to be the largest and most perfect abbey remain in England - the river flows thro' 4 arches under the end of the cloister over which the dormitory containing 40 cells - the Refectory and reading gallery on one side (from which the scriptures were read aloud during dinner) wanting little but the roof - the church part, too, wanting little else - not even all the yellowish white wash yet off the pillars and arches - the great tower gutted but perfect externally - singularly placed, at the end of the north transept - chapter house - kitchen buttery, abbot's house &c. very large remains - this is the only abbey-remain that ever gave me a clear idea of what a monastery used to be

Miss Walker sketching the interior of the church front (from the gallery behind the high altar) from 1 1/2 to 5 1/2 - I read and slept, and walked about, and read and slept again

Went to Fountain's hall an old house built out of the ruins of the abbey, and bought from the Messenger family about 60 years ago for £18000 the wood on the estate being at that time worth £20,000 - part of the Land occupied by the farmer and part by H.P. from some regiment who looks after the grounds and takes all that is given for shewing them (makes with salary and perquisites £700 per annum) and is younger brother to the steward who has £1000 a year and lives close to Ripon - a family is to pay 1/2 a crown not more for seeing the grounds and single people often give as much - a queer set of vulgar names in the visiting book in which we entered our own names at the lodge on alighting - some people had been eating there - and on our return, the man seeing we had had a small basket with sandwiches, said it was against the rule - the estate said our old guide is let all alike, good land and bad, so that some of the tenants who have the bad are too high rented and some too low - some have been reduced of late - the fine meadow that was the monks' garden just above the 7 old yews, producing 2 to 3 tons of hay per acre - that 'never fails of a crop' and is worth £3 per acre pays 25/- like the rest

Went to Fountains hall - Mrs. Morton very civilly came out, and shewed me the drawing room (on account of its old tapestry) and what used to then be used as the chapel tho' a large fire-place on it - several great many coats of arms in the middle large window

Off from Studley at 6 20/60 for some distance at first along a fine long vista terminated by Ripon minster - this struck us very much - passed thro' Ripon, and back (called 10 miles) to dine here at Boroughbridge at 7 20/60 - dinner at 7 1/2 - almost immediately afterwards coffee - everything very good and comfortable - till 10 1/2 p.m. wrote the whole of the above of today - very fine day and evening Fahrenheit 59 in our sitting room now at 10 1/2 p.m. - paid the bill and the waiter - went upstairs at 11 1/4.

WYAS: SH:7/ML/E/17/0038