Fountains Abbey was a Cistercian abbey. In 1132 a group of Benedictine monks from St Mary's at York arrived at Ripon to celebrate Christmas. They then moved on to become Cistercians and founded Fountains Abbey in 1134. The abbey maintained a large number of sheep paving the way for the area's important cloth industry.
A daughter house of Fountains Abbey. The initial location of the abbey proved unsuitable and the a new site was chosen near Horncastle in Lincolnshire.1
A daughter house of Fountains Abbey, the abbey at Kirkstall was first located at Barnoldswick , but was moved a few years later to its current location near Leeds in West Yorkshire.1