Strata Florida Abbey - Rediscovery

Rediscovery

Strata Florida was left to deteriorate until the arrival of the railways in the late 19th century. A railway engineer by the name of Steven Williams was building the nearby railway line and took an interest in the ruins of the church. At the time, it amounted to nothing more than a massively overgrown collection of indefinable ruins. Williams undertook a massive excavation there, removing huge amounts of spoil, and uncovering the majority of what we see today. Strata Florida once again became a place of pilgrimage, this time to the wealthy Victorians, who were entertained on trips on the railway, who then could make use of a short bus link to visit the remains themselves. Indeed, a principal station on the Carmarthen Aberystwyth Line was named after the Abbey.

About the Abbey the 1851 Illustrated London Reading Book says:

The remains of Strata Florida Abbey, in South Wales, are most interesting in many points of view, more especially as the relics of a stately seminary for learning, founded as early as 1164. The community of the Abbey were Cistercian monks, who soon attained great celebrity, and acquired extensive possessions. They founded a large library that included national records from the earliest periods, works of the bards, and genealogies of the Princes and great families in Wales. The monks also compiled a valuable history of the Principality, down to the death of Llewellyn the Great. When Edward I invaded Wales, he burned the Abbey, but it was rebuilt A.D. 1294.

Extensive woods once flourished in the vicinity of Strata Florida, and its burial-place covered no less than 120 acres (0.49 km2). A long list of eminent persons from all parts of Wales were here buried, and amongst them Dafydd ap Gwilym, the famous bard. The churchyard is now reduced to small dimensions; but leaden coffins, doubtless belonging to once celebrated personages, are still found, both there and at a distance from the cemetery. Only a few aged box and yew-trees now remain to tell of the luxuriant verdure that once grew around the Abbey. Of the venerable pile itself, little is left, except an arch, and the fragment of a fine old wall, about forty feet high. A small church now stands within the enclosure, more than commonly interesting from having been built with the materials of the once celebrated Abbey of Strata Florida.

Excavation work by University of Wales, Lampeter, and Trinity College, Carmarthen in the woods surrounding the Abbey have failed to find definitive evidence of the kiln that made the tiles for the Abbey. However, several large structures have been revealed through a geophysical survey, including what is possibly the gatehouse to the inner abbey precinct. A number of sherds of medieval tiles were discovered there, indicating that the site may once have also housed a chapel, possibly over the gateway. The building was later reused as a residence, and possibly as agricultural buildings, with a substantial frontage built over the original gateway road to form a third compartment between the two flanking buildings, before falling into disrepair and being ploughed under. A number of field boundaries dating back to the same period have also been discovered. Two leats that may have increased water flow into the Glasffrwd were also studied. It is believed they served the overall purpose of running a mill further down stream. Iron working slag was discovered within the proposed precinct. The excavations at Strata Florida are ongoing, and will be for years to come.