TINTERN ABBEY—IRON-WORKS—SCENERY OF THE WYE TO MONMOUTH—OLD TINTERN—BROOK’S WEIR—LANDAGO—REDBROOK.

How teaming with objects of curiosity and beauty is Monmouthshire! Within two or three miles of Piercefield we reached the justly-famed ruin of Tintern Abbey: its dark mouldering walls, solemnly rising above surrounding trees, appeared to us, in turning from a deep-wooded hollow, with a most impressive effect. [265] At the village adjoining we put up at the Beaufort Arms, the landlord of which, Mr. Gething, holds the key of the ruin, and who, extraordinary as it may seem, unites unaffected civility and kindness with upwards of forty years initiation into the business of an inn-keeper, and, as the neighbours say, a well-lined purse. Passing the works of an iron-foundry, and a train of miserable cottages engrafted on the offices of the abbey, we found ourselves under the west front of the ruin. This confined approach, incumbered by mean buildings, is not calculated to inspire one with a very high estimation of its consequence: but, on the door’s being thrown open, an effect bursts on the spectator, of so majestic and singular a description, that words can neither do justice to its merit, nor convey an adequate idea of the scene. It is neither a mere creation of art nor an exhibition of nature’s charms; but a grand spectacle, in which both seem to have blended their powers in producing something beautiful and sublime!

Through long ranges of Gothic pillars and arches, some displaying all the exquisite workmanship of their clustered shafts, while others are hung with shadowy festoons of ivy, or lightly decorated with its waving tendrils, the eye passes; and, for a moment arrested by the lofty arches rising in the middle of the structure that formerly supported the tower, it glides to the grand window at the termination of the ruin. Beyond this aperture, distinguished by a shaft of uncommon lightness springing up the middle, some wild wooded hills on the opposite side of the Wye rear their dusky summits, and close the scene with much congenial grandeur. The ruin is generally in a high state of preservation; the outer walls are perfect; and the elegant tracery of the west window above the entrance has not suffered in one of its members. A singular circumstance of this ruin, and to which may be ascribed its superior effect, is, that the fallen roof and all the other rubbish have been removed to the original level of the pavement by order of the Duke of Beaufort, and a greensward smooth as a bowling-green extended throughout. Hence all the parts rise in their original and due proportion, and with an undisturbed effect. At the same time, the uniformity of a lawn-like surface is diversified with several clunks; consisting of broken columns, cornices, and the mutilated effigies of monks and heroes, [268] whose ashes repose within the walls: Light branching trees start from their interstices, and throw a doubtful shadow over the sculptured fragments.

Tintern Abbey is cruciform; The length of the nave and choir is two hundred and thirty feet; their width, thirty-three; and it is a hundred and sixty feet to the extremes of the transept. It was founded for Cistercian monks by Walter de Clare, anno 1131; and in 1238, according to William of Worcester, the abbot and monks entered the choir, and celebrated the first mass at the high altar. It is probable, that only that part of the building was then competed, as the other parts the church are of a later style of architecture; and it was no uncommon thing for the choir to be built and consecrated before the rest of the structure was finished.

On entering the abbey, it was determined that we should proceed no further that day: getting rid, therefore, of my companion and landlord, who retired in a consultation about dinner, I locked myself in, and employed several hours without interruption in sketching the interesting features of the ruin. At an early hour the following morning we sallied from our inn, and, crossing the Wye, were greeted with a new effect of the abbey. Majestically towering above encircling trees, the external elevation arose in nearly its original grandeur. The walk, though clad with moss and tender lichens, appeared nowhere dismantled; yet might an eye, anxious after picturesque forms, be offended with the uniform angles and strait lines of the gable ends and parapets. We walked along the banks of the sinuous river about half a mile from the ferry, when the ruin presented itself in a very agreeable point of view. Looking full through the grand aperture of the eastern window, the rows of columns and arches, overhung with clustering ivy, wore the appearance of a delightful grove; and at the end of the perspective, the elegant tracery of the opposite window, besprinkled with verdure, was well defined; and in its distant tint had an admirable effect. These views of the mouldering abbey, combined with the wild scenery of the Wye, and the kindred gloom of a lowering atmosphere, were truly impressive and grand; yet they scarcely excited such sensations of awful sublimity as we felt on our first visit to the interior of the ruin.

In our different walks between the inn and the abbey, we were regularly beset with importunities for alms: the labouring man abandoned his employment and the house-wife her family at the sight of a stranger, to obtain a few pence by debasing clamour. This system of begging we found to arise from the late distresses, particularly that of the preceding year, which, bearing on the great class of the people with an almost annihilating pressure, entitled them to the sympathy and assistance of those whom fortune had blessed with prosperity: they had strained their aching sinews to meet the exigence, yet their utmost exertions proved inadequate to the means of support. Thus situated, alms or outrage formed their alternate resources; but, happily, in the benevolence of the affluent they found an asylum. This pressure was fast withdrawing, but its effects remained; they had tasted the sweets of indolence, of support without exertion; they no longer felt the dignity of independance (for the odium of begging was withdrawn by invincible necessity); and they continued the unworthy trade without remorse. Excepting a few significant curtsies in the manufactories of Neath, this was the first instance of the sort that we met with during our tour. In other places, industry was urged to its highest exertion; here, by an increased weight of necessity, it sunk beneath the pressure.

The iron-works of Tintern I believe to be almost the only concern in the neighbourhood of Wales where the old method of fusing the ore by charcoal furnaces continues to be practised. The manufacture is pursued to the forming of fine wire and plates.

The mineral wealth of this district was not unknown to the ancients; for large quantities of scoria imperfectly separated from the metal, which are evidently the refuse of Roman bloomeries, and many furnaces whose origin no tradition reaches, appear in several parts of the country. These Roman cinders have been in many places reworked, according to modern improvements in metallurgy, and made to yield a considerable portion of metal. The decline of the ancient works is justly attributed to their exhausting the forests which formerly overspread Wales, for charcoal, until they were at length entirely stopped for want of fuel. But within this half century, coke made from pit-coal, which possesses the essential principles of charcoal, has been applied with success to the fusing of ore: in consequence, very numerous iron-mines have been opened; and, aided by an inexhaustible supply of coals, their produce has exceeded even the sanguine hopes of the projectors. It must, however, be remarked, that iron made with pit-coal is of inferior tenacity and ductility to that manufactured by means of charcoal. Whether this arises from a radical defect in the material used, from a too prodigal use of calcareous earth to facilitate the flux of the metal, or any other cause, remains yet to be determined.

I cannot take leave of Tintern without mentioning a circumstance for the benefit of those tourists who may have an obstinate beard, or a too pliant skin. Having dispatched an attendant for a barber on my arriving at the inn, a blacksmith was forthwith introduced, who proved to be the only shaver in the village. The appearance of this man, exhibiting, with all the sootiness of his employment, his brawny black arms bare to the shoulders, did not flatter me with hopes of a very mild operation; nor were they increased upon his producing a razor that for massiveness might have served a Polypheme. I sat down, however, and was plentifully besmeared with suds; after which he endeavoured to supply the deficiency of an edge, by exerting his ponderous strength in three or four such scrapes as, without exciting my finer feelings, drew more tears into my eyes, than might have sufficed for a modern comedy. I waited for no more; but, releasing myself from his gripe, determined to pass for a Jew Rabbi, rather than undergo the penance of any more shaving at Tintern.We crossed the Wye from Tintern, that we might follow the beauties of the river in our way to Monmouth; then ascending a precipitous wild-wooded hill, we took a farewel view of our much-loved abbey, and soon looked down on the old village of Tintern, delightfully placed on the opposite bank of the Wye, and dignified with the ruin of the Abbot’s mansion. [274] Upon completing our descent in traversing the hill, we entered the irregular village of Brook’s Weir, off which a number of sloops of from 80 to 100 tons were at anchor: these vessels were waiting for their cargoes from Hereford and Monmouth, which are brought hither in flat-bottomed barges, as the tide flows no higher than this place. We had now a delightful ride for several miles over meadows and pastures that skirted the Wye; whose majestic stream, almost filling the narrow valley, reflected the inclosing hills from its surface in a style of inimitable beauty; while the rich ascending woods on either side threw a softened light on the translucent river and its verdant margin; so sweetly in harmony with the pleasing solitude of the scene, as might dispose even revelry itself to fall in love with retirement:

“O blest retirement, friend to life’s decline,
Retreat from care, that never must be mine:
How blest is he, who crowns, in shades like these,
A youth of labour with an age of ease!”

About four miles above Tintern the rural little village of Landago saluted us with its white church and cottages, glistening through encircling trees, as it skirted the river and climbed the side of a lofty hill. We then followed a gentle curvature of the Wye to Bigg’s Weir, a ridge of rocks which cross the river, leaving only a small interval for the current. A string of barges was unravelling its course in this strait as we were passing; which task seemed to engage all the vigilance and activity of the watermen. Near this spot the house (an ordinary mansion) and grounds of General Rooke, member for the county of Monmouth, occupying part of the river’s bank, obliged us to make a short deviation; but, soon returning to our limpid stream, we caught a glimpse of the church and castle of St. Briavel, crowning an eminence in the forest of Dean just behind us; and in front, a short distance beyond the opposite bank, appeared the decaying importance of Pilson-house.

The narrow stripe of meadow-land that accompanies the Wye from Brook’s Weir to Monmouth, and in which our road lay, now became frequently shut up from public convenience by fences crossing the tract, and styles, in the place of open gates, which the farmers had lately erected. We were therefore obliged to climb up the forest-clothed hills, of almost inaccessible steepness, driving our horses before us, and scrambling through bush and briar; and only regained the meadows to encounter a succeeding difficulty of the same kind. But our last was the greatest; for, pursuing a track broken through a closely-woven thicket that led over the hills, we neglected a doubtful opening in the brambles that indicated our road, and only guessed that we were wrong from the tedious height we were climbing. We had, however, gone too far to retreat; and therefore hoped, in the true spirit of error, as we had certainly missed the right path, that by proceeding boldly on we might extricate ourselves by another. At length we reached the top of the hill, and with no small disappointment beheld our track terminate at a lonely farm-house; where no one appeared to give us information; nor was any road whatever viable for the pursuit of our journey. Yet the view that this eminence commanded over the sinuous Wye, sweeping among sloping meadows, woods, and precipices, in some sort repaid our fatigue. Obliged to return, we forced a passage through tangled underwood to the margin of the river, which here forming an extensive reach between deep shelving banks, was thrown into one grand shadow. The evening was drawing to a close; and the retiring sun, no longer wantoning on the wavy current, sparingly glittered on the woody treasures of its marginal heights, but glared in full splendour on the distant hills; nor was a brilliant sky wanting to contrast the sombre solemnity of our vale:

“The evening clouds,
Lucid or dusk with flamy purple edg’d,
Float in gay pomp the blue horizon round;
Amusive, changeful, shifting into shapes
Of visionary beauty; antique towers
With shadowy domes and pinnacles adorn’d;
Or hills of white extent, that rise and sink
As sportive fancy lists.”

View on the WyeIn this shady silent retreat we passed about a mile, and emerged on the village of Redbrook, where several groupes employed in some iron and tin works, and in plying a ferry, gave animation to the scene. From this place, following a bold curve of the river, and skirting the base of the lofty Kymin, we soon came within view of Monmouth; the remarkably high spire of its church; and the large old Mansion of Troy, in a low situation, a small distance to the left, near the junction of the Trothy with the Wye.