Abbey — Tintern

William Marshal, earl of Pembroke, was on his first voyage to Ireland as lord of Leinster in the autumn of 1200 when he was caught in a storm. He vowed to establish a new abbey if saved from shipwreck and on reaching safety in Bannow Bay, he immediately granted c. 9000 statute acres of land for the foundation of a Cistercian abbey dedicated to the Virgin Mary. The land was part of Hervey de Montmorency’s fief in the cantred of Shelburne but following Hervey’s death in 1205 it reverted to Marshal. The actual conferring of the charter by Marshall is dated to 1207-13. The monastic estate, equivalent to the parishes of Tintern and Owenduff, extended north from Bannow Bay and lay to the west of the Owenduff River and were divided in two by the Episcopal manor of Kinnagh (Colfer 2002, 185-8; 2004, 45-7). The abbey was colonised by monks from Tintern Major in Marshal’s manor of Chepstow in Monmouthshire. Tintern Abbey is variously known as Tintern Minor, Tintern Parva (Little Tintern) or Tintern de Voto (of the vow). Close contact was maintained between Tintern Minor and its mother house but relations with its confreres at nearby Dunbrody were tempestuous and often violent. Tintern was suppressed on 6th May 1536 along with Dunbrody and Bective in Co. Meath. In 1576 a fee-farm grant of the abbey and its lands was made to Anthony Colclough who had come to Ireland as a member of the Lord Deputy’s staff and whose descendants continued to reside at the abbey until 1959. Throughout the post-Dissolution period, different elements of the abbey church were converted or adapted to domestic use. In 1963, the abbey, its outbuildings and the bridge with crenellated parapet (WX045-02802-) were transferred into the ownership of the state for preservation as a national monument. The Office of Public Works commenced conservation works in the early 1980s and extensive archaeological excavations were undertaken in the mid-1980s and 1990s (Lynch 2010). The abbey is sited on a gentle south-facing slope overlooking a small but fast-flowing river (sometimes referred to as the Tintern River) where it enters Bannow Bay in a tidal estuary. The surviving buildings comprise the nave, crossing tower, chancel and south transept chapels of the abbey church. The layout of the cloister arcade wall, as revealed by excavation, is also presented. Burial took place throughout the church and cloister area during the Cistercian period with most burials dating to the fifteenth century, and three graveslabs are preserved. The medieval gatehouse has been incorporated within a nineteenth-century stable block that houses a visitor reception area. The site is open with a guide service on a seasonal basis (see www.heritageireland.ie) but it is possible to walk in the environs of the abbey all year round. The Cistercian church comprised an aisled nave, crossing tower, transepts with three chapels opening off each arm and a chancel that was rectangular in plan. The archaeological evidence has shown that in the mid-fifteenth century a major contraction of the church took place which involved the demolition of the north aisle and north transept and the abandonment of the south aisle (ibid. 15-6). The upstanding remains are constructed of rubble masonry incorporating granite, sandstone, quartzite and shale with locally sourced red sandstone and granite used for the chamfered piers and arches. Dundry stone imported from near Bristol was used for some of the mouldings on the west door. The nave (L c. 22.5m; Wth c. 8.5m) is plain and austere with unmoulded arches, rectangular piers chamfered at the corners and solid masonry occupying the equivalent of the western bay. The chamfer moulding on the quoins of the west façade and the remains of a wall scar at a high level on the south façade indicate that the aisle walls terminated before the west wall. Details of the west doorway were revealed when later Colclough modifications were removed in the 1960s. The pointed-arch opening has two attached filleted jamb-shafts, banded at mid-height with moulded bases and capitals (now much eroded), all consistent with a thirteenth-century date. Dundry stone was used for the bands, capitals and defaced labels and the remainder of the dressed stone is Old Red Sandstone. In the early nineteenth-century, the nave was converted by the Colcloughs into a three-storey domestic dwelling of Georgian Gothic style. The nave arcades were blocked up and pointed neo-Gothic windows inserted and a ‘Gothicized Venetian doorway in the Betty Langley manner’ (Bence-Jones 1978, 273), reached by a set of three steps was set in the blocking of the western arch on the south side. The Colclough house was removed from the nave in the years following state acquisition. The crossing tower is square in plan (8m x 8m) and with its crenellated parapets is a maximum 27m high. The tower is an integral part of the extant church and may belong to the earliest phase of building. The parapets with crenellations and blockhouses were probably added during the fifteenth-century modifications. Just below the parapet, there is a double ogee-headed window on the south and west elevations which provided light to the bell chamber. On the west face of the tower, just under the apex of the stone flashing for the nave roof, there is a double square-headed ope which may originally have been a doorway giving access to a floored attic or loft over the nave. A similar blocked-up rectangular ope is visible on the south face of the tower as well as a a single narrow ogee-headed window just to the east. A small square-headed window and two narrow slit windows on the south elevation and a small ogee-headed window and narrow slit window on the north face all provide light to the mural stairs. The east face of the tower is fairly featureless except for the stone roof flashing and a blocked-up square-headed ope. Massive stone corbels indicate a timber floor just above the arch with a possible second floor or timber structure at a higher level to support the abbey bells. Access to the tower chamber was originally provided by a very narrow (0.4m wide) spiral stairway rising from the south-east corner of the south transept chapels. In the mid-fifteenth century modifications, a stair turret was built against the north face of the tower and at fourth floor level, the spiral stairs leads into steep flights of stairs within the east, north and west walls. A porch, roofed with large stone lintels protects the entrance to the stair turret. A substantial buttress (1.8m x 2.2m) built against the north face of the tower also belongs to the fifteenth-century phase of reorganization. In 1569 / 1570 the crossing tower was converted into a six-storey fortified dwelling. The remaining open arches were blocked up, large stone corbels were used to support the wall plates and floor beams, limestone fireplaces were installed and a number of small square-headed windows were inserted at different levels. Oak panelling was installed in the early seventeenth century, sections of which have been restored and are on display within the tower. The tower continued in use as part of the Colclough residence until the mid-twentieth century. The chancel (L c. 13.25m; Wth 8m) displays a degree of architectural sophistication not evident in the nave or tower. It may have been extensively remodelled c. 1300 or perhaps it was not actually constructed until this later period (ibis. 24-7). Traces of the outline of the original east window can be seen but this was blocked up and a narrower window inserted at some later stage. No tracery from either window has survived. There were three slender lancet windows in the side walls and sufficient remained of the tracery to reconstruct a two-light window with cinquefoil heads with pointed trefoil above and a dagger-shaped motif in the centre. Three plain tomb recesses have been incorporated in the north wall. The outside walls are strengthened by a series of shallow buttresses d