239 



and their friends being complete and satisfactory. This prosperous Club, now 

 numbering upwards of 200 members, will hold its next field meeting at Church 

 Stretton, on the 24th of August. 



INTERESTING PAPER BY MR. GEORGE COWLEY 

 HADDON. 



The following interesting paper was read by Mr. George Cowley Haddon, 

 architect, at the Meeting of the Woolhope Naturalists' Field Club, held on 

 July 27th. 



The name of Tintern is understood to be derived from the Celtic words din, 

 a fortress, and teyrn, a sovereign or chief, for it appears from history, as well as 

 tradition, that a hermitage belonging to Theoderic or Tendric, King of Glamor- 

 gan, originally occupied the site of the present Abbey, and that the Royal hermit 

 having resigned the throne to his son Maurice, led an eremetical life among the 

 rocks and trees here. Tintern Abbey, dedicated to S. Mary, was founded in 

 1131 by Walter de Clare, the grandson of Walter Eitzosbert, Earl of Ew. The 

 first endowment of this monastery, as well as later benefactions, to the seventh 

 year of Henry III., 1223, in a charter of confirmation from Roger Bigod, Earl of 

 Norfolk, in 1301, is set forth in Dugdale's Monasticon. Herein, says Tanner, 

 were thirteen religious about the time of the dissolution, when the estates belonging 

 to this monastery were rated at £256 lis. 6d. in the gross, and £192 Is. 4id., per 

 annum clear income. The site was granted in the 28th, Henry VIII., 1537, to 

 Henry, Earl of Worcester, and it is stUl the property of his descendant, the Duke 

 of Beaufort. The common seal of this monastery is appendant to an instrument 

 dated in the 6th, Henry VIII., whereby the Abbot and Convent appoint Charles, 

 Earl of Worcester, and Henry Somerset, Lord Herbert, his son and heir apparent, 

 chief stewards of their manor of Acle, in Norfolk. 



The subject of this seal, of which only a mutilated impression on red wax 

 remains, was the Virgin Mary and child seated under an ornamented arch in a 

 niche underneath, and Abbot with his crozier on his knees praying. Nearly the 

 whole of the legend is gone. 



A sister Abbey to this was also situated on the shore of Bannow Bay, in 

 the barony of Shelburne, three mUes N.E. of Duncannon Fort, in the county of 

 Wexford, Ireland. William, Earl of Pembroke, being in great danger and peril 

 at sea, made a vow to found an abbey in that place where he should first arrive in 

 safety. The place was the bay in question. He accordingly performed his vow, 

 dedicated his Abbey to the Virgin Mary, endorsed it, and settled a convent of 

 Cistercian Monks or White Friars in it, whom he brought from Tintern, in 

 Monmouthshire. 



Archdale gives the particulars of the Earl of Pembroke's endowments of 

 this house. The whole, however, was not completed in the Earl's lifetime, for 

 Dugdale has given King John's charter, confirming the bequest of 30 carucates of 

 land to this Abbey in the Earl's wUl. 



