Abergavenny Church.: Original hand coloured aquatint etching

Abergavenny Church. Original hand coloured aquatint etching. Drawn and Engraved by J Cullum. Ca 1840. Sheet and plate size 265mm x 205mm including blank border of 15mm and title Now known as St Marys this Priory was a Monastery of Benedictine or Black Monks, founded in the reign of Henry I between 1100 and 1135. Abergavenny Church is recorded in the poem The Worthiness of Wales written near the end of the 16th Century, by Thomas Churchyard who toured Wales in 1586. This poem, dedicated to Her Most Excellent Majesty, Queen Elizabeth, gives much information respecting the Church and the Monuments. The poem was first published in 1587 and reprinted in 1776. Extensive alterations took place in 1828 and Cathedral and Church architect Gilbert Scott was to comment in 1874 "Few Churches have suffered from decay and injudicious repair than this." Information regarding the alternations would suggest this aquatint was completed after the alternations, the leaded roof replaced by slates being the most obvious indicator. An attractive, clean, bright and strong print showing a building that was once described as the Westminster Abbey of South Wales.