A team of expert stone masons has begun work on a major conservation programme at Tintern Abbey, one of Britain's best known monastic sites.
As part of the project, the south aisle of the abbey nave is to undergo intensive consolidation work, with masons repairing and restoring stonework, and, where necessary, replacing damaged and eroded masonry with new stone.
Restoration work will also focus on the nave's 12 arched windows, with masons carefully conserving the range of carved details and moulding profiles that act as 'signatures' of the original masons involved in the construction of the abbey.
Founded by Cistercian monks in the twelfth-century, Tintern was the first abbey of the order to be built in Wales, and was the first great medieval monument in Britain to be brought into state care, almost a hundred years ago.
The site is now the responsibility of Cadw: Welsh Historic Monuments, the National Assembly agency responsible for Wales's built heritage, and masons working at Tintern are members of Cadw's works branch, Cadwraeth Cymru.
Special barriers are to be erected enabling members of the public to observe the work safely. The project will take two years to complete and the new work is designed to have a minimum life of 75 years.
Rich Turner, inspection of ancient monuments at Cadw, says: "Tintern Abbey is a magnificent Gothic complex. Its cathedral-style church – which was built in the emerging Decorated style – gives us the best idea of what the original St Paul's Cathedral would have looked like before it was destroyed by fire.
"In later times Tintern Abbey provided a key focus in a landscape of great importance in the Picturesque movement, and was a popular inspiration for artists such as J.M.W. Turner and poets like William Wordsworth. The abbey lies within an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty and within the Lower Wye Valley, an area included in Cadw's Register of Landscapes of Outstanding Historic Interest in Wales.
"The work being undertaken at Tintern forms the first phase of an ongoing programme to source stone from a number of quarries throughout the UK in order to match the original as closely as possible. We will also be using traditional lime mortars."