TINTERN ABBEY

Taranaki Daily News, 11 June 1932, Page 11 (Supplement)

TINTERN ABBEY

A TITANIC EFFORT

((By

T.C.L.)

It is a far-cry from Yorkshire to South Wales. To make the journey is to see England at its best and its worst. There is the breeze and the spaciousness of the moors, the squalor of the industrial towns, the up and down scenery of Derbyshire, some of it, on a smaller scale, and in a more finished state, not unlike the country in the Nelson-West Coast districts. West and south you come to the dismal potteries region of Staffordshire and then through the “Black Country,” which has its more pleasing side, too. Through Birmingham and down through the Worcestershire fruit districts, across to Hereford, and then down the lovely valley of the River Wye. , Just above the junction of that beautiful woodland stream with the turbulent Severn, is the quaint old town of Chepstow. It is set in the loveliest surroundings. On a slope between high cliffs the town drips down to its river wharves, which, by the way, boast the highest rise and fall of tide (53 feet) in the British Islands. There is a wonderful old castle at Chepstow, dating from the 11th century, and concerned in practically every bit of Welsh border fighting until' the Civil War, when it stood a siege from both Royalists and (Parliamentarians. But beautiful as Chepstow' and its surroundings may be, it is because of its association with another great piece of architecture that the little town is so well known to oversea visitors.

Five miles above Chepstow, in the valley of the Wye, are the wonderful remains of Tin tern Abbey. Their setting of woodland and river scenery is perfect. The buildings themselves, although roofless and despoiled, have suffered less than other abandoned ecclesiastical marvels from those who regarded them as useful depositories of building stone. Access to Tintern was not so easy, and one likes to think that perhaps the 'beauty of the Abbey and its surroundings kept vandalism in check. For a long time the ruins were the property of the Dukes of Beaufort. Now they belong to the nation, and are cared tor by H.M. Board of Works. The board has done all in its power to preserve [ and interpret, the ruins. Broken sculpture has been put back into place, judicious repair made, and the whole of the Abbey buildings are kept as being one of the nation’s treasures.

The least damaged portion of the ruins is the church. It is said to be partially on the site of an earlier church, built when the Abbey was first established 600 years ago. For Tintern, like most abbeys, took nearly three centuries to complete. It was built for the Cistercian Order and they were never hurried. About 90 years after the Lord of Chepstow -began the great work a scheme of enlargement took place, and with it came the demolition of the first church for the larger one of which the ruins remain. It is good to hear that side by side with the church the good fathers built the infirmary, though of this there are now but the foundations left. The church was a huge, building. Oyer 200 feet in length, it had a nave with six bays. There was a choir for lay brothers .in the westerly bays of the centre aisle. Further .east, behind-a solid, choir, screen, was the monks' choir.' Beyond that .again, was the ,J>resby.teryj' with the-"high altar, and sufficient remains to show what exquisite work was given in screen and pillar and window sculptures. The great east window of the presbytery is- 60 feet high. Its central mullion, is", still intact and some, of .its. .beautiful ..tracery remains. ■ It ’is said to have been glazed with the arms of the Abbey’s founder. The windows of Tintern have been judged “according to the proportion but not the size” of the windows of ■Westminster. Abbey. But beautiful and inspiring as is the church, the visitor is interested in what may be termed the social side of the Abbey. He enters' by the western range of the cloisters, a portion reserved for the lay-brothers. For a time they played a big part in the development of the establishment and its demesne. But later austerity would have only the cloistered monks, and the lay brethren disappeared. To some the lack of their humanising influence spelt the first decay of the. monastic system, but that is a matter of opinion only. It is when your guide shows you & couple of old lockers in a cloister and tells you they were to hold books, or when he shows you recesses that were for the lavatory basins where the towels hung over them in a building just off the “common room” of the monks that you begin to realise Tintern Abbey was not always a silent ruin but the pulsing heart of a tremendous organisation Again, you are shown a vaulted opening looking rather like a baker’s oven, and you are told it was the serving-hatch from the kitchen. Just within what was the entrance there is a double recess: the one for washing spoons and the other for locking them up. Further along is the access to the reader’s pulpit, from which the brother on duty entertained his fellow monks. Being human, it is said that not all his stories and exhortations were wholly religious either. Passing the foundations of what was the great hall, there is a well-preserved three-storeyed building. In the first floor were the lodgings of the Prior, the second in command of the abbey, and below it the “warming-house,” the fireplaces of which remain with passages for conveying the warmth to the Prior’s lodgings above. Outside the cloistered buildings were the lodgings for visitors of all grades, for Tintern was, like all abbeys, a place of refuge' for all and sundry. Moreover, its influence extended over a wide area, and its business transactions necessitated visits from all sorts and conditions of men.

In the remains of what was the vestry are several pieces of sculpture. One of them is said to he an effigy of Richard Strongbow, Earl of Pembroke, who made such history in Ireland. One leaves Tintern a little overwhelmed —the titanic effort it represented; the beauty of its surroundings; the concentration of highest human skill upon infinite detail, and then the ruin of it all. It is part of England, part of English history that had. to go towards a nation’s evolution. It is the recollection that the same evolution is never ending which takes away the feeling of effort wasted and the pitifulness of human endeavour. Melrose, Fountain’s, Tintern and scores of other ruins were the expression of ideals. But ideals still exist though manifested in other ways and in other lands by the same Britons. So long as that is true ruins are not monuments; they are milestones.