Studley Royal Park is an estate in North Yorkshire, England. The site has an area of 800 acres (323 ha) and includes an 18th-century landscaped garden; the ruins of Fountains Abbey; Fountains Hall, a Jacobean mansion; and the Victorian St Mary's church, designed by William Burges. Studley Royal House, around which the park and gardens were designed, burned down in 1946. The park, as Studley Royal Park including the ruins of Fountains Abbey, has been designated a World Heritage Site. It has also been designated a grade I listed park and garden by Historic England, and various structures within it are individually listed.

After the Dissolution of the Monasteries, the Fountains estate was owned by the Gresham, Proctor, and Messenger families. At the same time, the adjacent Studley estate was separately held by the Mallorie (or Mallory) and then Aislabie families, after the marriage of Mary Mallory and George Aislabie. The estates were combined on 22 December 1767, when William Aislabie purchased the Fountains estate from John Messenger. In 1966, the property came into public ownership after its purchase by West Riding County Council. In 1983, it was acquired by the National Trust.

The gardens and park reflect every stage in the evolution of English garden fashion, from the late 17th century to the 1780s and beyond. Most unusually, both John and William embraced new garden fashions by extending their designed landscape rather than replacing and remaking outmoded parts. As a result, the cumulative whole is a catalogue of significant landscaping styles.

Studley Royal Park is an estate in North Yorkshire, England. The land broadly slopes and east-facing views are a feature of its landscape. The River Skell runs through the site, cutting through layers of Upper Carboniferous sandstone and Permian Magnesian limestone. The park was formed through the aggregation of the former land-holdings of Fountains Abbey, which were purchased by the Gresham family after the Dissolution, and the estate of Studley Royal.

Whilst the prehistoric origins of the land upon which Studley Royal Park now stands are under-researched, there is evidence for settlement in the area. An excavated flint assemblage from the park demonstrates the presence of people working flint on the site. There is evidence of farming activity dated to 4,500 years ago.

Material from the Iron Age is also associated with the site, including a lost gold torc. Iron Age enclosures at Mackershaw date from the sixth to fifth centuries BC. In the later phases of that enclosure, Romano-British material, including an Egyptian glass bangle, has also been discovered. The presence of Romano-British communities is also attested by the excavation of four skeletons by the vicar of Wath in 1881.

Documentary sources and place-name evidence, rather than archaeological excavation, provide insight into the early medieval period in the area. The Venerable Bede recorded that King Alhfrith of Deira granted land for a monastery near Ripon to Eata.

Fountains Abbey was founded in 1132 by Benedictine monks who left St Mary's Abbey, York to follow the Cistercian order. During the medieval period, monastic landholding steadily increased. For example, in the 1220s, Cassandra de Aleman donated land at Swanley to become part of the monastic grange.