More information : [SE 2761 6705] THE TOWER [T.I.] CHAPEL OF ST. MICHAEL DE MONTE [G.T.] (Remains of) (1)
How Hill (Aislabie's Tower). A Gothic tower built about 1550 on the site of St. Michael de Monte, a former chantry of Fountains founded in 1345. Mediaeval material was used and a monastic inscription put over the doorway. (2-3)
The Tower was probably restored in the 19th c. when the abutting farm buildings were built, See GP:AO/63/103/2 (4)
John Aislabie built the tower as part of the first phase of the garden at Studley Royal Park, circa 1718-23 to be seen from the garden rather than to provide a view of the garden. Originally it was a two-storeyed square building with a cantilevered roof of pyramidical form, the only parallel for which so far discovered is at Castle Howard, and that probably by Vanbrugh. The tower was carefully sited to utilise the ruins of the Chantry Chapel of St. Michael de Monte (circa 1200) and formed a backdrop to them. The chapel was reconstructed by Abbot Huby circa 1495-1526 but lay ruinous from the Reformation until Aislabie's works began. Fragments of the ruins were incorporated into the tower. It was used as a gaming house in 1737-8 and may later have functioned as a folly. The chapel ruins were converted and reused as farm outbuildings later in the 18th century, the outbuildings resembling a nave to the tower from a distance. (5-6)
SE27606704. A series of earthwork features survive on the western and northern flanks of How Hill. To the west, a substantial earth and stone bank runs north-south for 150 metres. It forms a boundary between the ground around the chapel and the agricultural land to the west and may have originally defined the curtilage of the chapel. A series of earthwork terraces and platforms lie between this bank and the hilltop and 2 areas of ridge and furrow survive to the west of the bank. Scheduled. (7)
This was the first garden building to be built by John Aislabie and its construction is documented in letters he wrote in 1719. The Canal (Monument HOB UID 1093044) was aligned onto this feature. It is also likely that the tower was designed by Sir John Vanbrugh. (8)
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