The old abbey is a majestic ruin which fills one with wonder as he looks up at its broken arches and towers and sees the dimensions marked by the pedestals or foot-prints of its templed columns.

It stands rather in a narrow glen than in a valley, and was commenced, it is supposed, about 1130.

The yew-trees under which the monks bivouacked while at work upon the magnificent edifice, are still standing, bearing leaves as large and green as those that covered the enthusiastic architects of that early time.

In the height of its prosperity and power, the lands of the abbey embraced over 72,000 acres.

The Park enclosing this great monument of an earlier age contains 250 acres, and is really an earthly elysium of beauty.
It was comforting to learn that it was laid out so late as 1720, and that all the noble trees that filled it had grown to their present grandeur within the intervening period.