It's the remains of a 12th century Cistercian foundation called Croxden Abbey, although the tree is of more recent date. It only lasted 359 years, and by the time I moved to this area the doors had already fallen off. Nevertheless, you can still sit on a wall and eat your sandwiches in the summer.
Somebody else took the picture. I don't know who. Sorry.
Just saying.
6 comments:
That's the thing about Britain, isn't it? You can't go five feet without bumping into some ancient ruin that would have been made into a parking garage had it been in the US. I assume this one was abandoned with the dissolution of the monasteries? Funny how no one at the time thought to convert them into condos.
Dissolved in 1538, apparently, so yes. I gather the stones from castles, abbeys and Hadrian's Wall were frequently purloined by local builders for the construction of farmhouses, pig pens and the like. Good for them, I say, because now the old places are Ruined and Romantic.
They were also purloined by rich Americans for fancy gardens and the Cloisters.
Damn Yankees! You take our best brains, our iconic old liners, London Bridge (well, one of them) and our ancient stones. Still, we do have the Elgin Marbles... (and a few other bits and pieces from around the world.)
I wonder what would happen if Donald Trump tried to buy Stonehenge to decorate one of his golf courses.
An American tycoon did try to buy Stonehenge once. I can't remember which tycoon it was but it definitely happened.
I find that pretty astonishing. Seems to me it indicates something fundamentally lacking in terms of value perception. Having said which, Mrs Thatcher might have sold it to him if it had been up to her. If I might paraphrase one of her famous utterances:
'There is no such thing as an ancient monument. There are stones that sell and stones that don't.'
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