Beside the River Wye on the Monmouthshire side of the border of England and Wales is the ruin of the once magnificent Tintern Abbey. Walter de Clare, an Anglo-Norman nobleman and Lord of Chepstow founded the Abbey on 9 May 1131. It was the first Cistercian foundation in Wales, and only the second in Britain. After the Dissolution of the Monasteries in the 16th century, the Abbey fell into ruin once the lead from the roof had been sold.
