Probably the most interesting part of the abbey church to ordinary visitors are the chapels and monuments, which suffered serious injury in the 16th and 17th centuries, but were repaired in the later centuries. Many lords of Tewkesbury, including members of the family of Clare, Despenser, and Beauchamp, are interred in the church, while on the south side of the choir are the remains of what were at one time probably the memorials of every abbot of Tewkesbury from Giraldus to John Wakeman. The Clarence vault is supposed to contain the remains of George, Duke of Clarence, who was mysteriously put to death in the Tower of London by his brother Edward IV. It is said that having been allowed to choose the manner of his death, the Duke elected to be drowned in a butt of Malmsey wine. Adjoining the church is the abbey house--formerly the infirmary of the monastery; and west of this again is the embattled gate-house, built in the 14th and 15th centuries by Abbot Parker. Tewkesbury was the last of the religious houses of Gloucestershire to surrender to the commissioners of Henry VIII. Its annual revenue at the time amounted to a sum equivalent to about £40,000 of the present day--a third of which was allotted as pensions to the abbot and monks. The present beautiful church, deemed to be superfluous and consequently ordered to be destroyed, was bought from the king by the people of Tewkesbury. It has undergone frequent restorations, no less than £25,000 having been expended on it between the years 1875 and 1892, while at the present time an effort is being made to restore the grand west front--one of the most beautiful examples of ancient church architecture in England. [Illustration: TINTERN.] TINTERN (_Cistercian_) 1131, Founded by Richard de Bienfaite--Colonised by monks from L’Anmone--In the reign of Henry III., William, Marshal of England and Earl of Pembroke, “Confirmed to God and the Blessed Mary of Tyntern and to the abbot and monks there all the lands and revenues given to them by his ancestors” (Dugdale’s _Monasticon_)--1287, The building of the abbey church begun--153--, Dissolved. Annual revenue, £193, 1s. 4d. Site given to present owners, the Earls of Worcester. More than one great artist has immortalised the secluded vale, where, on a bend of the Wye and surrounded by wooded hills, the ruins of Tintern Abbey stand. The sombre-looking heights, which close in to the east and west, create the atmosphere of loneliness and separation from the world so sought after by the Cistercian monks, who doubtless found inspiration in the grandeur of the surrounding mountains and in the peacefulness of the sweet valley below. Though the church of the Early English abbey is roofless and the central tower gone, the noble structure, with its many graceful arches, seems to attest to the spirit of religious fervour and devotion so intimately associated with the history of its grey and lichen-covered walls.