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THE WEST FRONT OF TINTERN ABBEY CHURCH, MONMOUTHSHIRE

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 July 2015

†Richard K Morris ,
Nicola Coldstream  and
Rick Turner
Nicola Coldstream
Affiliation:
Nicola Coldstream, FSA, Corner House, 1 High Street, Ascott-under-Wychwood, Chipping Norton OX7 6AW, UK. Email: [email protected]
Rick Turner
Affiliation:
Rick Turner, FSA, 175 Stanwell Road, Penarth, Cardiff CF64 3LN, UK. Email: [email protected]
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Abstract

The conservation and repair of the west front of Tintern Abbey church, undertaken by Cadw between 2005 and 2010, provided an unrivalled opportunity to survey, record and analyse the design, construction and alteration of a much-celebrated example of medieval architecture. This paper considers in detail the moulding profiles and ornament of the west front and offers a developmental history for this part of the abbey church. Comparisons are made with ecclesiastical architecture elsewhere in England and Wales, and with the contemporary programme of work being undertaken at nearby Chepstow Castle. Two appendices outline the history of its conservation since 1900 and assess some Victorian drawn records of the west front.

Résumé

Les travaux de conservation et de réparation effectués sur la façade occidentale de l’église de Tintern Abbey par Cadw entre 2005 et 2010, ont offert une occasion inégalée d’étudier, de consigner et d’analyser la conception, la construction et les modifications de ce très célèbre exemple de l’architecture médiévale. Le présent article examine dans les détails les moulures et décorations de la façade ouest et présente un compte rendu du développement de cette partie de l’abbatiale. Des comparaisons sont établies avec des édifices médiévaux d’autres endroits de l’Angleterre et du Pays de Galles et avec le programme de travaux entrepris à la même époque au château de Chepstow voisin. L’histoire de sa conservation depuis 1900 est décrite dans deux annexes qui examinent également les dessins de la façade ouest effectués à l’époque victorienne.

Zusammenfassung

Die Konservierungs- und Reparaturarbeiten an der Westfassade der Kirche von Tintern Abbey, die von Cadw zwischen 2005 und 2010 durchgeführt wurden, lieferten die einzigartige Möglichkeit, Entwurf, Konstruktion und Änderungen an diesem vielgerühmten Beispiel mittelalterlicher Architektur zu studieren, aufzunehmen und zu analysieren. Diese Abhandlung untersucht auf eingehende Weise die Formprofile und Ornamente der Westfassade und bringt eine Entwicklungsgeschichte zu diesem Teil der Abteikirche. Vergleiche werden mit sakralen Bauwerken in anderen Teilen von England und Wales und mit dem derzeit am Chepstow Castle durchgeführten Arbeitsprogramm gezogen. Zwei Anhänge umreißen die Geschichte der Konservierung seit 1900 und bewerten einige viktorianische Aufzeichnungen zur Westfassade.

Type
Papers
Information
The Antiquaries Journal , Volume 95 , September 2015 , pp. 119 - 150
Copyright
© The Society of Antiquaries of London 2015 

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References

1 Held in Cadw’s archive.

2 Lott and Barclay 1998.

3 This work was facilitated by having a full inspection scaffold and record drawings produced by Tim Morgan.

4 Robinson 2006, 124–37; Robinson 2011, 32–5, and pull-out plan (as fig 2).

5 Harvey 1969, 61 n. 2, quotes an extract from a chronicle of Tintern Abbey (British Library, London, Cotton ms Vesp D xvii, fol 61). For 1301, it records: ‘The new church of Tintern Abbey, 32 yeres in building, was finished by Roger Bygod, and at his request was hallowed the 5 kalends of August’.

6 Robinson 2006, 126, 278–80.

7 As recorded by the antiquary William Worcestre during a visit to the abbey in 1478: Harvey 1969, 55.

8 Harrison et al 1998, 177–268.

9 In the most recent edition of Robinson’s guidebook, he acknowledges the emerging results of this analysis: Robinson 2011, 32–4.

10 Potter 1847; Sharpe 1848.

11 A doorway cut into the north-west corner inside the aisle gave access from the lay brothers’ range.

12 Harrison et al 1998, 187–8; Robinson 2011, 40.

13 A damaged statue of the Virgin and Child from the site was recently restored and reassembled and is now on display alongside the visitor centre. It is too big to fit the vesica, and must have been placed elsewhere. There was a chapel at Tintern containing an image of the Virgin which could not be moved ‘although the attempt has more than once been made’; for this miracle (and for the sake of the daily mass) ‘a very great multitude’ frequented the chapel. Drawn from Calendar of Papal Letters 1404–15, vi, 452, quoted and discussed in, for example, Harrison et al 1998, 187–8.

14 Illustrated in Robinson 2011, 40.

15 See the reconstruction drawing by Terry Ball in Robinson 2011, 43.

16 See the indication of cusping around the frame in figs 5 and 11.

17 The other three facades of the church (east arm and both transepts) also have gable windows with tracery, but the west one is significantly larger.

18 These stubs do not survive in the head of the window today; a reconstruction of the window is shown in Terry Ball’s drawing in Robinson 2011, 43.

19 Bony 1979, ch 2.

20 Robinson 2006, 137.

21 Thurlby 1991, who also discusses Binham’s west front as an example where the documented patronage and its sequence of building based upon the architectural evidence is open to different interpretations.

22 Thurlby 1993.

23 Dean 1986.

24 The central doorways at Tintern and Newstead also share the characteristic of their tracery being slotted into a surrounding channelled frame (David Robinson, pers comm 2007).

25 Turner and Johnson 2006, 135, figs 117, 135, 136.

26 Morris 2005a.

27 This moulding became fashionable in the south west in the mature Decorated period, 1320–50, especially for rib profiles: see Harrison et al 1998, 226 and figs 32, 35.

28 See also Robinson 2006, 135–6; also Morris 2000, 214–17 and fig 59.

29 See Bony 1979, 126–7, pls 63, 67; the Holborn windows use a more elaborate form of impaled trefoils, with two extra foils.

30 Bony 1979, pl 72.

31 Ibid, pl 100; see also Jansen 1991, 43–4.

32 Morris 1979, figs 11 and 13 for Decorated mullion profiles; Morris 1991, 62 and fig 3.6–7 for Exeter mullion profiles. The simpler mullion profiles at St Etheldreda are drawn in the Abbey Square Sketch Book, vol 8 (1874–5), p 125, illustrated in Jansen 1991, pl xd.

33 Marc Morris suggests that Roger Bigod was involved at the inception: Morris, M 2005, 134 and n. 204.

34 See discussion in Robinson 2006, 278–80.

35 Harvey 1969, 55. Worcestre saw this information in an ancient calendar at Aust in Gloucestershire on his way to visiting Tintern Abbey.

36 Robinson 2006, 280; Robinson 2011, 15 and 32.

37 Turner and Johnson 2006, chs xiv–xvi, 135–76.

38 Brand 2008.

39 TNA, PRO SC6 921/23. The work at Chepstow was supervised in his absence by Master John of Wollaston; Wollaston was a manor of Tintern.

40 TNA, PRO LR 12/43/1938.

41 TNA, PRO SC6 922/5.

42 First referred to in 1282–3: TNA, PRO SC6 921/24 m.2.

43 See also Robinson 2006, 130.

44 TNA, PRO SC6 922/8.

45 Morris, M 2005, 183.

46 Or perhaps the abbey was low in funds, and, with the masonry fully painted, the anomaly may not have been obvious to the casual observer.

47 This style of window is similar to that reconstructed for the east windows of Tintern’s chapter house dating to 1230–50 (Robinson 2004, fig 11). It is repeated in the gable of the north transept, which puts this design of window even later in Robinson’s phasing than its use in the west front.

48 Blashill 1886.

49 Ibid, fig between pp 248–9.

50 This is the situation, for example, at the churches at Abbey Dore and Pershore after they were reduced for parish use at the Dissolution.

51 For Decorated mouldings, see Morris 1978, 21–9, for the wave, and Morris 1979, 20–31 (capitals and bases).

52 Robinson 1997.

53 Gloucestershire Archives, Gloucester, D4183.

54 Gwent County Record Office, Ebbw Vale, D 902.

55 Robinson 1997, 47–8.

56 Turner 2007.

57 Turner and Watkins 2005.

58 For a fuller discussion of this subject, see Morris 2005b, 2–5, and Morris 2007, 3–4.

59 Potter 1847.

60 Reference was made to Potter’s illustrations only after my profiles were drawn, to ensure objectivity.

61 In 1922, more detail was visible, and enough of the immediately adjacent capital was preserved to show that it too had dogtooth (see fig 7).

62 The sub-bases are plain, without a roll moulding.

63 The plates of the west front were drawn by S Potter and J Potter (the plates are variously labelled). S Potter does not appear in the credits, for example, of the drawings of the refectory and chapter house, which are variously by J Potter or James Fowler. It is worth considering whether this different authorship was also a factor in the accuracy of the profiles of the west front.