For centuries, monasteries were among the most powerful institutions in Wales. They were not only religious centres, but major landowners, employers, and providers of education, healthcare and chairity; shaping both the physical landscape and the rhythms of daily life. Abbeys such as Strata Florida and Tintern dominated valleys and crossings, embedding spiritual authority within systems of land, labour, and memory.

This dominance ended abruptly with the Reformation and the Dissolution of the Monasteries in the 1530s. Monastic communities were dispersed, their lands seized by the Crown, and buildings abandoned, dismantled, or reused. What had been held in common under religious authority was not returned to local communities, but redistributed through royal patronage to a new aristocracy and gentry, consolidating wealth and power in fewer hands and reshaping patterns of ownership in Wales. 

The ruins that remain mark this transfer of authority—from spiritual to secular, from communal devotion to inherited privilege. They stand as lasting traces of a profound transformation in Welsh society, culture, and the meaning of land itself.