Peter at Tintern Abbey
Karen at Tintern Abbey
Every year we try to get to Tintern Abbey at least twice. The abbey, subject of Wordworth’s poem, is just over the Welsh border on the banks of the River Wye, around three hours drive away. The ruins are beautiful, but what attracts us is the setting. The Cistercian monks in the 12th century sought out magical places, or power spots, and two of their Welsh abbeys, Tintern and Strata Florida, are in very special locations. There’s a sense of tranquility in both that visitors can’t shatter. This year, with the long, late winter we were just too early, as the swifts which usually fly around the ruins weren’t yet there in numbers, and they form a soundtrack which adds to the ambience. So we’ll go again in a few weeks. We collect children’s illustrated books, and one of the half a dozen best secondhand children’s bookshops is in Tintern, Stella Books.
The setting of the bookshop at Tintern, white building just right of centre
See the article On Location with Grapevine Three for a description of what happened when we tried to film a video nearly twenty years ago, in an equally magical place, Glastonbury Tor. The resulting video was Glastonbury Story from the now out-of-print Grapevine Three Video. If we did a similar story again, Tintern would be a much more accessible setting.
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