Tintern Abbey

Founded in 1131, Tintern was the second Cistercian house in Britain and the first in Wales, and the church standing today was rebuilt between 1269 and 1301. After the dissolution in 1536 the lead was stripped and the roof went, but the walls, the arcades and the great west and east window frames stayed up, so the building survives as a complete outline with the sky inside it. From the 1780s the Wye valley became the destination of the first organised tourist route in Britain, and Tintern was its centre: William Gilpin wrote it up as the model of the picturesque, Turner painted it repeatedly, and Wordsworth's poem of 1798 was composed on a walk nearby. The valley was also an early industrial district, with wireworks and furnaces along the river using the same water power.

What you actually see

• The empty tracery - window frames standing complete with no glass or roof.
• The full outline - nave, transepts and arcades intact to wall-head height.
• The picturesque history - the site that defined the taste for ruins from the 1780s.
• The Wye setting - wooded valley sides enclosing the abbey on both banks.

When to go

April to October for full opening; morning and evening light through the east window is the reason to time a visit. Autumn colour on the valley sides is strong. Winter hours are shorter and the site is often nearly empty.

Honest expectations

It is entirely roofless and offers no shelter in rain. The A466 runs immediately past and traffic noise carries. Parking in the village is limited and charged. The interior is grass and stone with little interpretation on the ground.

Nearby

Chepstow and its castle lie south; the Wye Valley walk and Symonds Yat run north.