Full Report for Listed Buildings
The list description is not intended to be a complete inventory of what is listed: it is principally intended to aid identification. By law, the definition of a listed building includes the entire building (i) and any structure or object that is fixed to the said building and ancillary to it and (ii) any other structure or object that forms part of the land and has done so since before 1 July 1948, and was within the curtilage of the building, and ancillary to it, on the date on which said building was first included in the list, or on 1 January 1969, whichever was later.
Summary Description
Reference Number
15767
Building Number
Grade
II
Status
Designated
Date of Designation
08/07/1966
Date of Amendment
01/03/1995
Name of Property
Ruin of Talley Abbey
Address
Location
Unitary Authority
Carmarthenshire
Community
Talley
Town
Locality
Talley
Easting
263267
Northing
232772
Street Side
Location
Prominently situated in the centre of Talley village to the S of the parish
church.
Description
Broad Class
Religious, Ritual and Funerary
Period
History
Established 1184-1189 by Lord Rhys ap Gruffyd for the Premonstratensian Canons. The building campaign was hampered from the start due to insufficient endowment and costly quarrels with the ambitious Cistercians at Strata Florida and Whitland. The building work was accordingly reduced in scale and the initial plans were never realised. In royal hands from 1278. Misrule, isolation and unwelcome royal intervention in the C14 and C15 led to decline and the Abbey's dissolution in 1536 went un-noticed. The abbey was spared immediate destruction and until 1773, the presbytery and choir were used as a parish church. Thereafter it became a quarry for local builders. In 1933, the guardianship of the ruins were entrusted to the commissiners of H.M Works.
Exterior
An ambitious abbey was planned, a 73m long Latin cross with aisles, square east end and transepts with eastern chapels, all very much in the Cistercian style. The N aisle and the four westernmost bays of the nave were only completed to foundation level and were then ignored during the difficult building programme.
The N and E walls of the crossing tower stand to a height of 24m; of the rest, only low walls survive. Mural passages visible in tower. Transepts with similar plans having 3 eastern chapels, the springing of their former barrel vaults visible on the choir walls. Square ended presbytery with foundations of anteroom and sacristry to S. N and E crossing arches plain and unadorned. Simple corner shafts to NE crossing pier up to springing level. Foundations of nave piers intact; all are of coursed plain rubble except that to the SE, which has a chamfered plinth and moulded quoins. Blocking wall across N arcade and to W end. Foundation walls of S aisle.
Interior
Reason for designation
Scheduled Ancient Monument no: Cm013
Cadw : Full Report for Listed Buildings [ Records 1 of 1 ]
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