Cylchgronau Cymru

Chwiliwch trwy dros 450 o deitlau a 1.2 miliwn o dudalennau

Irrjjanilogia Camkr^n«i». NEW SERIES, No. V.—JANUARY, 1851. CHEPSTOW PRIORY CHURCH. Among the more attractive objects, both natural and artistic, with which its neighbourhood abounds, the poor fragments of the once Conventual Church of Chepstow have probably received less attention than they merit. Its stately compeer of Tintern—an expression less ludi¬ crous three centuries back than it sounds at present— speaks for itself, and impresses the most casual observer; but it is only the practised eye of the architectural stu¬ dent that can discern any claim to lasting attention in the patched and mutilated pile I am about to describe. Yet it is one deserving our notice on at least two grounds; as revealing no small amount of splendour, and yet more of singularity, in its original plan, and also as demon¬ strating the unpleasing proposition that, while the lowest depth of art and taste has been often assigned—by my¬ self certainly till a few days past—to the Llandaff of a century back, a still lower depth may be discovered in the Chepstow of our own day. Ten years have not elapsed since the most irreparable barbarisms that ancient struc¬ ture ever underwent were inflicted on a church which might have excited the reverence of all by its massive pro¬ portions and venerable antiquity, and the singularity of whose architecture might claim no mean place among the monastic remains of Wales and its Marches. ARCH. CAMB., NEW SEMES, VOL. II. 13