About

[Currently Closed to Public]

The ruins of St. Mary's Church in Tintern can be seen on the hill above Tintern Abbey at the southern end of Tintern. It stands on an older religious site dedicated to Llanandras and originally served as a place of worship for the Cistercian monk's lay-tenants as well as the secular community within this Chapel Hill parish.

The church is Grade II listed and has been scheduled as a monument for its national importance as a relatively unaltered work of the eminent 19th century church architect John Prichard, incorporating elements of its medieval predecessor on what is likely to be a much older site. It forms a prominent landmark within the much-celebrated picturesque landscape of the lower Wye Valley and appears in a number of works by notable artists, often on its wooded hillside in wider views of Tintern Abbey. St Mary's remained in use until 1972 before being destroyed by fire in 1977. 

The graveyard contains 3 Grade II listed monuments to the family of wealthy Iron Managers including a Baroque sarcophagus tomb known as the 'wine-cooler' , which  belongs to Richard White, a wealthy ironworks leaseholder who died in 1765. Other interesting graves include one to Peter Carr who died on the 14th of October 1913 in the Senghenydd Pit disaster and a war grave To Private B B Hall, an American citizen who enlisted in the Lancashire Fusiliers and died at Connaught Hospital, Farnborough on 5th March 1919 aged 22 years. 

The ruin is privately owned, unsafe, and as such unauthorised entry is forbidden.  Structural work is being undertaken with a view to re-opening it to the public once it is made safe.