Fountains Abbey, Yorkshire

I sent this card to myself last year, mainly because of the stamp - I wanted it on a postcard as I don't collect mint stamps but still like Europa stamps.

Studley Royal Park including the Ruins of Fountains Abbey (the latter shown here) is a Unesco site in Yorkshire. A striking landscape was created around the ruins of the Cistercian Fountains Abbey and Fountains Hall Castle, in Yorkshire. The 18th-century landscaping, gardens and canal, the 19th-century plantations and vistas, and the neo-Gothic castle of Studley Royal Park, make this an outstanding site.

Studley Royal Park is one of the few great 18th century gardens to survive substantially in its original form, and is one of the most spectacular water gardens in England. The landscape garden is an outstanding example of the development of the ‘English’ garden style throughout the 18th century, which influenced the rest of Europe.

Fountains Abbey ruins is not only a key eye catcher in the garden scheme, but is of outstanding importance in its own right, being one of the few Cistercian houses to survive from the 12th century and providing an unrivalled picture of a great religious house in all its parts.

The Royal Mail don't seem to care too much about Europa stamps - either the stamps they issue don't really fit the theme of the year or the stamp is a part of a bigger set of stamps and it's not possible to buy just a single stamp. That was the case again last year - this stamp was part of a miniature sheet of 4 stamps. Also, you can't get hand cancellations of mail you're sending out in the UK but some post offices will hand cancel items you've received yourself that haven't got a cancellation on. I did that with this particular postcard.