Neath Abbey Ruins, a Taste of the Past Next to McDonald's

Oct 16, 2011
Vivien Young

Neath Abbey Looking East - Vivien Young

The South Wales town of Neath was one of only nine places in Wales named by the Romans. Its utilitarian modern aspect is studded with reminders of the past

It seems incomprehensible to visitors from younger countries than ours that we treat our mementoes of the past with such disdain. Yet in the UK (and other parts of Europe too) human beings have been leading their everyday lives for such a long time that the occasional piece of old road (like the piece of the Via Domitia to be found in the centre of Narbonne) or an occasional Roman amphitheatre is neither here nor there.

Old and New Meet by Neath Abbey Ruins.

The ancient market town of Neath in South Wales is a prime example of a town where Romans, Normans and Tudors have all left their mark, but where time has galloped on ahead, so that the ruins of a Norman Abbey and of a Tudor mansion are squashed into the corner of an industrial estate.

The A465 runs past the south edge of the Abbey ruins. To the north is a tyre fitter's, a pub and a chip shop. To the west, the abbey site is overlooked by Swiftplan Ltd (manufacturers of portable buildings) – this juxtaposition of ancient and modern has a delicious irony all its own. Only to the east does the landscape appear unchanged, a vast swathe of tidal marshland bounded by the river Neath and the Neath canal.

Any ghostly monks who still inhabit Neath Abbey ruins could gaze eastwards and believe that nothing much had changed since the sixteenth century. From the monks' dormitory windows though, the view west reveals the golden arches of McDonald's, handy for the inhabitants of the local industrial estate but quite alien to the spirits of the past that still make the Neath Abbey site a wonderful place to visit.

History of Neath Abbey

Neath Abbey was founded by Richard de Granville in October 1130 as a daughter house to the Norman Abbey of Savigny. Savigny was part of the growing family of Cistercian Abbeys which were part of the most highly regarded religious order in medieval Europe.

The Cistercian monks followed the Rule of St. Benedict (written shortly after AD535) by the father of western monasticism, St. Benedict of Nursia. Following the Rule, Cistercian monks were committed to a radical simplification of monastic practice, turning away from all sources of excessive luxury and wealth. The monks would have worn habits of undyed wool (which led to their popular name, the White monks), followed a strict rule of silence and survived on a very meagre, mainly vegetarian diet.

The Black Death and Dissolution of the Monasteries

The Abbey's history was eventful. In 1316, an uprising in South Wales led by Llywelyn Bren left the Abbey wealth plundered with the buildings devastated and ruined. In 1348-50, the Black Death visited Neath, and fifty years later, Owain Glyndwr's rebellion against the English brought further discord to the monks' lands and livelihood.

For about one hundred and fifty years, from the early 1400s to the mid 1600s, the Abbey flourished, until in 1539, the whole Abbey estate was handed over to the men of Henry Vlll as part of the Dissolution of the Monasteries.

Tudor Mansion, the Industrial Revolution and Restoration

King Henry passed the Abbey estates to Sir Richard Cromwell (nephew of Thomas Cromwell) and for a number of years, a succession of Tudor noblemen lived in the southern half of the Abbey estate, keeping the ruins of the Abbey buildings as a magnificent folly in the northern half of the grounds.

However, in 1731, the manager of the Welsh Copper Company took out a lease on the property, and for the next two hundred years, industry engulfed the environs of the Abbey, with copper smelting and forging taking place on the site initially and later, iron making and coal mining. One observer described the site like this :" Neglected Neath, once the ornament of a lovely vale, looms up through the dense veil of smoke the skeleton of a stranded ship, crumbling piecemeal to decay under the influence of almost perpetual rain" (Cadw).

In 1924, a group of local volunteers began to clear and excavate the site and in 1944, the abbey was placed in the care of the State. Today, Neath Abbey is maintained by Cadw, the historic environment service of the Welsh Assembly. It's a magnificent site, easy to explore, very close to the centre of Neath but despite its proximity to the twenty first century, still full of the spirit of past centuries.