York Guides

In the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries several northern monasteries added great towers to their churches. At Kirkstall Abbey it was found possible to increase the height of the central tower, but at Shap and Furncss attempts to do this ended disastrously, and in each case a tower was built at the west end of the church. Fountains also failed to heighten its central tower, and Abbot Huby decided to build a new one in a safe but unusual position off the north end of the north transept.

It is a tower designed to leave no doubt in the mind about the preeminence of Fountains amongst the English Cistercians. Rising to a height of some 170 ft, it was divided by floors internally and string courses externally into five storeys. It has a deep moulded plinth, and massive angle buttresses with gablets and niches. The design of the windows varies with each storey, the ground and third floor windows having two-centred heads, the first floor four-centred or elliptical heads, and the top floor flat heads. .Hands of inscription are placed beneath the embattled parapet and beneath the two upper tiers of windows. The Latin texts arc taken from the Cistercian breviary and include the verse from the first epistle to Timothy: Regi autem saccnlo-rum imnwrtali, invisibili, soli Dco, honor ct glaria in saecnla sacailomin (Now unto the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honour and glory for ever and ever), repeated four times in abbreviated forms and much used by Abbot Huby on his other buildings.

The top of the tower was designed to have two large pinnacles at each angle, standing out on the face of the buttresses and connected to the parapet by miniature flying buttresses, with a smaller pinnacle set diagonally and corbelled out from the parapet in the middle of each side.

In addition to the inscriptions, the external faces of the tower have niches set above seven of the windows, some still containing their statues. On the south face, a niche over the lowest window has a statue of an abbot without a mitre, perhaps representing St. Benedict or St. Bernard. On the north face a niche over the lowest window has St. Catherine with her martyr's palm, and over the window above is St. James the Great. The niches over the lowest windows on the east and west faces are surmounted by angels holding shields of arms, that on the east bearing the three horseshoes of Fountains Abbey, and that on the west the mitre, crozier and initials of Abbot Huby.

Shields of arms are also inserted in the bands of inscription. The horseshoes of Fountains appear six times, the maunch or sleeve of Norton of Norton Conyers appears four times, an unidentified shield bearing a cross between two mitres and two keys appears twice, and a shield bearing a pall, perhaps for the archbishopric of York, appears once.