How Hill Tower

How Hill Tower is one of those fascinating corners of the Studley Royal and Fountains Abbey landscape that carries far more history than its size suggests. What looks like a simple ruin on the hillside is actually a blend of two very different worlds: the medieval chapel of St Michael de Monte, first built around the 12th century for the monks of Fountains Abbey, and the early 18th-century tower created when John Aislabie reshaped the entire estate into one of England’s most ambitious designed landscapes.

Aislabie had a habit of turning existing ruins into dramatic features, and How Hill Tower fits that pattern perfectly. The medieval remains were incorporated into a new structure that acted as a viewpoint, a decorative element, and a touch of deliberate romantic decay long before the idea became fashionable. In later years it served everything from a garden ornament to a gaming house, before drifting quietly back into the landscape as the estate changed hands and centuries moved on.

Seeing it from the air on an early autumn morning brings out exactly what makes it special. The tower sits on the slope above the valley, half hidden in the soft gold of the season. The woodland below was just beginning to turn, and the low sun threw long, gentle shadows across the hillside. The old stonework glowed in the light, the footprint of the medieval chapel still clearly visible even from above, and the broader Studley Royal landscape stretched away behind it. It’s one of those places where history layers itself so naturally into the land that you almost forget how much time has passed.