Ruins of medieval tannery discovered at Fountains Abbey in England

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 It is Britain’s biggest and most famous monastic ruin and one that conjures up bucolic images of peace, reflection and very little noise.

In reality, archaeologists have revealed, Fountains Abbey near Ripon was as busy, noisy and industrialised as anywhere in 12th- and 13th-century Britain.

The National Trust has announced the discovery of the foundations of a medieval tannery at the abbey, part of a world heritage site. Experts were astonished.

“This really is a wonderful discovery, it is very important,” said Mark Newman, a trust archaeologist. Fountains is probably the most investigated Cistercian abbey in Britain, “so when you discover a major building on this scale, that was completely unknown … you don’t get many of those in a career.”

“A tannery of this size, spanning such a large area of the site, reveals an operation on an industrial scale,” said Newman.

 

Source - The Guardian (https://www.theguardian.com/science/2021/oct/25/archaeologists-find-missing-link-history-fountains-abbey?)

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