English Heritage

One of England’s finest ‘Picturesque’ landscape gardens, Rievaulx Terrace and Temples were created in the 1750s for Thomas Duncombe II, owner of Rievaulx Abbey and a nearby mansion. Set on the hillcrest overlooking the abbey, the terrace provided his guests with dramatic glimpses of the romantic ruins.

Today, as you stroll along the wildflower-fringed lawns, you get a series of changing views of the abbey ruins far below, seen through gaps in the trees.

At one end of the terrace stands the domed Tuscan Temple with a 13th-century tile pavement brought from the quire of the abbey church. At the other is the pedimented Ionic Temple, a sumptuous garden banqueting house with the blingiest of Georgian furnishings and a ceiling painted with mythological scenes. There’s an exhibition about the Terrace in the temple basement, which was once a below-stairs kitchen.