JMW Turner's paintings and William Wordsworth's poem helped make this place famous, and it is one of the most dramatic, majestic, and eerie of all the ruined abbeys in Britain. Nestled in the rolling hills of South Wales, it is picturesque, magnificent, haunting, and humbling! Just standing among the ruins gives you a sense of being outside of time, and with a bit of imagination the experience gets even better.
Tintern Abbey was a bustling and wealthy monastery until Henry VIII destroyed it during the dissolution (1536). Henry had started the Church of England and thought the monasteries were becoming too wealthy and corrupt. What better place to cash in on funds he desperately needed? He dissolved the monasteries, often killing the monks who resisted, and took all the land and wealth for himself. Tintern Abbey is a shell of its former self - literally. It is a glorious building without a ceiling, with grass for a floor, and stairs that lead nowhere.
Recommended Reading:
William Wordsworth's "Lines Composed a Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey," here.
About JMW Turner, here.
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