colclough hub: Tintern photos circa 1900

Below are some plates from Hore's History of Wexford.

There are interesting views of Tintern abbey before 1900, they look familiar to me, I went there in the early 1990's and saw much as these photos depict. But what they cannot show is the feeling of peace, the sense of quiet and of connection. It was November I think, and I had travelled through Wexford with Bernie, he had to work that day! I remember standing alone, I was completely alone no one at all in the whole place, I was in the little church looking at the graves and tombs, writing out the epitaph's and names I know now that they had all been documented elewhere. It was poignant, the names were my names, and they were people who would have looked in askance at the red Triumph Spitfire I had arrived in. I was reflecting on it all when a Wood-Pigeon took off behind me, there was nearly another epitaph for the place:

'Here lies John Colclough a Wood Pigeon did for him'

Tintern abbey built at Bannow bay in Co. Wexford. It was founded about 1200 and known as Tintern de voto, of the vow, because the legend is that William Marshall, the Earl of Pembroke, Strongbow's son in law, when travelling from Wales was caught up in not just a storm but a tempest. In fear of his life he promised his God that he would build a suitable tribute if he was spared, which of course he was, landing in Bannow bay at St. Kearns. That was it and that was where the monastery was to go. It was to be a daughter house of Tintern Abbey in Monmouthshire. A singularly beautiful place. There is no reason to suppose that Tintern Wexford would have been any less so, I'm biased of course, but the setting in Wexford is easily a match for the Wye valley in the Wales - England border country.

Hore in his history of Wexford notes there was disdain at the building of a house at the expense of a beautiful antiquity, but his Edwardian sensibilities did not run to Henry VIII's part in Tintern's demise.