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Mr. Willis Bund says, "How unnatural for any Welsh prince to found a Cistercian abbey!" Surely it was the most natural thing in the world. The Cistercians had far greater influence in Wales than any other monastic order. The Cistercian abbeys were Aberconway, Basingwerk, Valle Crucis, Strata Marcella, Cymer, Strata Florida, Cwm Hir, Whitland, Neath, Margam, Llantarnam, Tintern, Grace Dieu, Dore.
The monasteries of Tintern, Margam, and Neath were built by Norman barons; and Strata Florida, Valle Crucis, and Basingwerk showed that the Welsh princes also welcomed the monks. Better, then, than the brilliant wars were the poets and the great Eisteddvod. Better still, perhaps, were the orchards and the flocks of the peaceful monks.
Their loss affected the whole country, as each part of Wales had one or two of them Tintern, Margam, Neath, and Whitland in the south; Strata Florida, Cwm Hir, Ystrad Marchell, and the Vanner in central Wales; and Basingwerk and Maenan in the north. The Reformation brought the poorer classes in Wales, not only insults to their national and religious feelings, but material loss.
Bala Lake, with its fishing-rights, once belonged to the Cistercian abbey of Basingwerk, while the Dee just above Llangollen was the property of the abbey of Valle Crucis, whose beautiful ruins still stand on its banks.
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