Tintern Abbey

The last part of our adventure in England included driving down by the River Wye. It was beautiful and very different to what we had seen so far. As we drove down to the river, out pops this massive old ruin of Tintern Abbey.

Tintern Abbey was founded by Walter de Clare, Lord of Chepstow, on 9 May 1131. It is situated in the village of Tintern, on the Welsh bank of the River Wye in Monmouthshire, which forms the border between Monmouthshire in Wales and Gloucestershire in England. The present-day remains of Tintern are a mixture of building works covering a 400-year period between 1136 and 1536. The first Mass in the rebuilt presbytery was recorded to have taken place in 1288, and the building was consecrated in 1301, although building work continued for several decades. The abbey is built of Old Red Sandstone, of colours varying from purple to buff and grey.

There is a theory that the chapel at Tintern Abbey was a separate building alongside the two foreshortened windows of the South aisle, of which foundations were revealed during an excavation in 1904/5.