York Guides

The middle of the fifteenth century ushered in the last period of building activity. Abbot Greenwell (1442-71) improved the decoration and ornaments of the church. Abbot Darnton (1479-95), besides putting right structural defects in the eastern arm of the church and replacing the stone vaulting there by timber roofs, inserted the great traceried windows in the east and west gables. He also extended the practice of making individual chambers in the aisles of the infirmary hall, and did work to the misericord.

This practice was continued by his successor, the great builder. Abbot Huby (1495-1526), in whose work magnesian limestone was first extensively used. Abbot Huby left his mark on almost every part of the abbey, but his main works were the remodelling of the abbot's house and the galleries adjacent it to, the addition of the 'church chamber' and a new sacristy on the south side of the presbytery, and the reinforcement of the crossing and transepts, made necessary by structural failure provoked by an earlier attempt to build a tower over the crossing. This also led to his greatest contribution, the building of a new tower on a safe site off the end of the north transept, where it still stands to a height of 170 ft as a memorial to the power of Fountains and to the dignity of her abbot.