The ruins of Tintern Abbey have been abandoned for almost five hundred years, since 1536 when the abbey became a victim of the nationwide dissolution of the monasteries.
Now only the walls and pillars remain, with lush grass growing in the nave and interior spaces. The most beautiful aspect of the abbey’s decay is how its appearance mimics a stand of trees. The sandstone, flaking and banded like bark, the pillars reaching straight up like Californian redwoods and the ground shaded by the remaining walls and the outlines of arches soaring above.
