A Wild Secluded Scene

Tintern Abbey occupies the peculiar position of being almost better known for its history as a ruin than as a medieval monastic building. During the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries it became a tourist attraction, with Turner capturing the ruins in paint and Wordsworth writing his lines a few miles above the Abbey. Yet Tintern was only the second Cistercian foundation in Britain, the first in Wales, and several years earlier than the foundations of what would become the powerful Yorkshire Cistercian houses.

Relaid medieval tiles in the Chapter House.

 

East end of the Church.

 

Tintern Abbey from the east.

 

It is perhaps not quite as impressive to look upon as some ruined abbeys, but for myself its connections to my beloved William Marshal (through patronage and the burial of his wife) and the sighting of some tiles were enough to make my trip to Tintern particularly worthwhile.