Ruins & Disintegration

Back in the summer we managed a few trips out and about and actually visited a few places 'on the doorstep'.  Why is it that we spend time, effort and money going to faraway places yet often ignore those that are right under our noses?

Less than a two hour drive away through south Gloucestershire, the Forest of Dean and the Wye Valley National Landscape (a designated Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty), is the disintegrated ruins of Tintern Abbey - an impressive national icon — standing next to the River Wye in Monmouthshire (Wales).  

Tintern Abbey was founded in 1131 by Cistercian monks. The timber buildings of the first abbey were followed by a simple stone church and cloisters.

The Cistercian Order was founded in 1098 at the abbey of Cîteau in Dijon, France. A breakaway faction of the Benedictines, the Cistercians sought to re-establish observance of the Rule of Saint Benedict - written in Latin c. 530. The Cistercians were considered the strictest of the monastic orders with an emphasis upon  a life of simplicity, labour, and deep spiritual contemplation. 

This influenced even the requirements for the construction of their abbeys, stipulating that "none of our houses is to be built in cities, in castles or villages; but in places remote from the conversation of men...”. 
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The motto of St Benedict was: ‘Laborare est orare’ – ‘To work is to pray’.

In 1269, thanks to the patronage of wealthy Marcher lords (appointed by the English crown to govern and defend the border regions between England and Wales, known as the Welsh Marches), the building of a new abbey church commenced and resulted in a “much grander structure with soaring gothic arches, windows with delicate tracery, and surrounded by substantial outbuildings including the cloisters where much of the life of the abbey community took place, chapter house, library, refectory, dormitories, and infirmary. It housed over a hundred choir monks, who were ordained priests, and lay brothers who did the ‘housework’”.

The great west front with its seven-lancet window and the soaring arches of the nave is still impressive despite falling into ruin in the first round of King Henry VIII’s dissolution of the monasteries in 1536.

The Dissolution ended monastic life in England, Wales and Ireland. Tintern Abbey and all ots estates were  surrendered on 3 September 1536. Valuables from the Abbey were sent to the royal Treasury, and lead from the roof was sold and the building was granted to the Henry Somerset, 2nd Earl of Worcester (and lord of Chepstow).

Therefore, the decay of Tintern Abbey began, with the resulting present-day ruins demonstrating a mixture of building works covering a 400-year period between 1131 and 1536.
 
See these links:
Tintern Abbey by William Wordsworth (English Romantic poet 1770 – 1850
Tintern Village - Abbey History