Distinctly Gothic in style and dating from the early thirteenth century the abbey cloisters form a quadrangle against the backdrop of the abbey church. With a tranquil, lawned garden suspended between the sky and the sea at their centre, this area would have been an ideal retreat for the monks’ daily meditations and whispered conversations. The cloisters are also a good indication of the wealth and strength held by the church at the time, for the cost of commissioning the beautiful granite pillars and elaborately carved decorative arch stonework must have been considerable. The carvings and crochets beneath the cloister arches, made of limestone from Caen, incorporate dragons and mythical creatures along with foliage, vines and floral themes. The supporting columns or orders have a classical simplicity about them, perhaps dictated by the hardness of the porphyritic granite stone, with octagonal plinths and complementary simple cushioned capitals – reminiscent of an earlier Romanesque styling.Apart from the use of the cloister arcades as an ambulatory, the area serves as a distribution gallery lead to other abbey buildings – the dormitories, refectory and the church. The western aspect is a belvedere outlook to sea, the originally planned chapter house intended for this face having never been constructed. This view across the herbaceous garden looks onto the North transept and its window seen earlier from inside the abbey church.
I could not help but recall the famous labyrinth I had seen earlier at Chartres Cathedral, and imagine how perfect this garden would be for such a device.
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