The Abbey – which is today in ruins, some of which have been restored – was founded in c.1200 by William Marshal, Earl of Pembroke, as the result of a vow he had made when his boat was caught in a storm nearby.

[4][5] After the Dissolution of the Monasteries the abbey and its grounds were granted firstly to Sir James Croft, and then in 1575 to Anthony Colclough of Staffordshire, a soldier of Henry VIII.

The final member of the Colclough family to reside at Tintern was Lucey Marie Biddulph Colclough and, after she left in 1959, the Irish state started conservation and consolidation works on the site.

[6] Between 1982 and 2007, the National Monuments service of the Office of Public Works undertook a number of excavation and heritage development efforts at the abbey,[7][4] including special conservation measures for local bat colonies.

[8] Additional works were undertaken after a fire in the site's visitor centre in 2012, which damaged part of the 19th century outbuildings on the abbey's grounds.