Underneath the arches

A visit to Tintern Abbey.  The first Cistercian house in Wales, parts of this date from the 12th century (although there were many rebuilds and extensions).  This was one of the case studies I used in my Masters dissertation, which was on water management and sanitation in medieval Cistercian monasteries.  The water systems were amazing - the most sophisticated since the Romans, and not surpassed again until the Victorian era.   Fresh water was brought by lead pipes from a spring a couple of miles away, and fed into fountains which were used for ritual handwashing (and sometimes footwashing) before meals, as well as supplying the kitchens.  A branch was taken off the nearby river Wye and channelled through deep drains which passed under the latrines and flushed them through, rejoining the river downstream.  Remains of the sluice gate remain visible.  Pretty much all Cistercian houses (and the houses of many other orders in the medieval period) had similar arrangements, as well as complex and impressive land drainage and improvement schemes in the landscapes they managed.  And yes, I am just a little bit obsessed with this subject!