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LLANVIHANGEL FOR PARTRICIO AND GAER CAMP.

MAY 19TH, 1885.

"O'th gav, yr Hâv, i'th awr harz,
A'th geindwr, a'th egindarz;
Dy hinon yn dirion dwg
Aur-genad i Vorganwg.

Tesog vore, gwna'r lle'n llon;

Ag anerç y tai gwynion

Rho dwr, rho gynnhwv gwanwyn:
A cynnull dy wull i dwyn;
Tywyna'n valç ar galę gaer

Yn luglawn, yn oleuglaer.'

So sings the bard, David ab Gwilym, the Welsh Ovid, who flourished about the middle of the fourteenth century under the peculiar patronage of Ivor the Generous, an ancestor of the Tredegar Family. He continues, moreover, his "Invocation for the Summer to greet Morganwy," in a happy succession of eloquent verses, which those only can appreciate who understand fully the beauty and harmony of the Welsh language. It is to be feared that the members of the Woolhope Club generally have not this happiness. In mercy to them is given this bald translation of the lines quoted :

If I obtain thee, O Summer, in thy splendid
Hour, with thy fair growth, and thy shooting
Gems; thy serenity pleasantly bear, thou
Golden messenger, to Morganoc. With
Sunshine morn gladden thou the place;
And greet the whitened houses; give growth,
Give the first fruits of the spring, and collect
Thy blossoms to the bush; shine proudly

On the wall of time, full of life and gaily bright.

For more than five hundred years the cottages of Monmouthshire, and the same may be said of Glamorganshire, have been whitewashed. The white walls point out the situation of the cottages in the beautiful valleys visited by the Woolhope Club to-day as clearly and brightly as they are described by the poet in the middle of the fourteenth century.

The first field meeting of the year took place at Llanvihangel Station, and Mr. Lane, the Secretary, took the following list of the gentlemen who attended it :-Mr. C. G. Martin, the president of the Woolhope Club; Mr. H. C. Moore, vice-president; Mr. Henry Wilson, president of the Malvern Field Club; Sir George H. Cornewall, Bart.; Sir Herbert Croft, Bart.; the Hon. and Rev. Berkeley L. Scudamore Stanhope; the Hon. and Rev. Wm. Scudamore Stanhope; Drs. Bull, Chapman, and J. H. Wood; General Gillespie; Major Doughty ; Captain Campbell; the Revs. T. Beavan, W. Bowell, G. H. Clay, C. L. Eagles, E. A. Ely, H. B. D. Marshall, S. Stooke-Vaughan, J. Tedman, and H. W. Tweed; Mr. F. R. Kempson, F.R.I.B.A.; Messrs, J. A. Bradney, Arthur Bowell,

T. D. Burlton, J. Carless, R. Clarke, James Davies, A. B. Donaldson, Howorth Greenly, W. H. Harrison, J. W. Lloyd, W. Pilley, H. A. Purchas, and J. Riley.

The way was first taken to the old manor house of Pen-y-clawdd (the head of the moat), which possesses features of very great interest. The house itself is not very ancient (a manor house of the 17th century) but it is still old enough to be very picturesque with its stone walls and its square-headed windows. It probably occupies the site of one still more old, which was then entirely surrounded by the moat, which is now only complete on the north side. The road passing the house is enclosed by an artificial embankment, which once probably formed part of the moat. At the present time, a few yards from the house, is a flat circular mound some fifty paces in diameter, surrounded by a wide grass-covered ditch, and this again is enclosed by a very steep artificial embankment, still higher than the circular mound, around which ran the moat. This moat was supplied with water from a stream from the mountain side, diverted for the purpose. The stream now takes its natural channel, and the water in the portion of moat remaining is stagnant. This may have been the house of some Saxon proprietor, rich in beeves, who had his cattle driven within his entrenchments by night, and protected himself and them from any sudden surprise by treacherous enemies. Or it is open still to such other suggestions of the imagination as its strong fortifications may indicate, for they could not be made without an amount of time and labour that proves how great the perils were to require them.

The circular mound was occupied botanically, not only by a large oak and some other trees, but growing over a considerable surface of the ground was Narcissus biflorus, the Pale daffodil, or Primrose peerless, by no means a common plant. Did some Saxon damosels plant the first bulbs, from which the ground has been covered? As the visitors clustered upon the mound a photograph was taken, the said imaginary fair Saxons being represented on this occasion by Mrs. and Miss Gillespie, the former mounted on her favourite black cob, far more handsome and useful than could have existed in Saxon days.

From the Pen-y-clawdd the members proceeded along the side of the Brynarw hill, from "bryn," a hill, and "garw," rugged, it was said, (but this can scarcely be right, for it is a round-backed hill now, as it ever must have been). On its side grew a large patch of the common Yellow daffodil, Narcissus pseudo-Narcissus, in a double form; and on some of the boggy spring heads the president gathered Montia fontana, the Water chickweed, or blinks, as it is sometimes called, because it seldom opens its small flowers. The northern slopes of the Brynarw hill road led along the side of the Cwm-coed-y-cerrig, the dingle, or valley, of woods and rock, which separates this hill from the Gaer, on whose summit could be seen the encampment that was shortly to be visited. Extremely pretty the valley is. Its rocks could not be seen, for the road was above them; but its varied woods of oak and fir, its detached whitewashed cottages, each surrounded by its enclosure of gardens and fields, were looked down upon very pleasantly. This portion of the Brynarw hill is called the Forest Coal Pit hill, and the first house on the descent is called Coal Pit, and many inquiries were made as to whether the vain attempt had been made here to get coal beneath the Old Red Sandstone rocks, of which this whole

range of hills is composed.

The attempt has several times been made in Herefordshire, and the money of many industrious people been lost, whereas if there is truth in geology, the real coal measures have all been washed off the surface of the Old Red Sandstone, and Murchison ridiculed the vain attempt by saying "they should rather go up in a balloon to seek it." There does not seem to have been any real coal pit here. The man who lived in the Coal Pit house knew nothing of it, and the tradition, kindly gleaned for the Club by the Rev. John Davies, of Pandy, is probably right—that the pits here were charcoal pits, where the wood from the neighbouring valleys was converted into charcoal, to be conveyed to the Forest of Dean for smelting the iron ore. It is an additional misnomer for the hill, for it should have been the Charcoal Pit hill.

The road runs through the Forest hamlet, and by the side of the beautiful river Grwynne (Anglice, Groiney), to Pont Esgob, or the Bishop's Bridge (another name absurdly transmogrified into Pont Yspig). This bridge over the Grwynne Fawr was built either by, or in commemoration of, Baldwyn, Archbishop of Canterbury, who is said to have passed over the river at this spot when, accompanied by Giraldus Cambrensis in their tour through Wales in 1188, he was engaged in preaching the Crusades through this district. The Grwynne Fawr is a beautiful river, and it flows through a lovely valley. It is occupied by a tribe of trout fishes, as beautiful as they are bold. It is such a stream as this that delights the soul of a fisherman. To have fished the Grwynne for a few days is an era―an Elysium— in life never to be forgotten. It is happy for these brave fish that they are protected by many overhanging trees. The ardour of the sportsman is thus beguiled by nature (or bothered by the boughs), whilst the fish ensconce themselves in safety in the rocky hollows beneath the thick bushes.

The path led through sandy corn fields and narrow lanes, where were gathered the Lamb's lettuce, Fedia olitoria, and the Veronica buxbaumii, a plant introduced with seed corn of late years; and where the walls teemed with pretty plants— the shining Crane's bill, Geranium lucidum on the top, whilst the crevices between the stones abounded with Wall pennywort, Cotyledon umbilicus (how soothing its hollow fleshy leaves are to aching corns !), and those beautiful ferns, Ceterach officinale, Asplenium trichomanes, Adiantum nigrum. The hedges, or rocky divisions of the fields here, were plentifully ornamented with the Bird cherry, Prunus padus, in the full perfection of bloom.

The light bird cherry hangs its flag

In snowy splendour from the crag.

The walk up the valley was very diversified and very pleasant, though sometimes rather steep in the short cuts. The house of Ty-yn-y-llwyn, one of the many "Houses in the Grove" that Wales rejoices in, was soon reached. This was formerly the mansion of the Herberts. Charles Herbert died here in 1703, and the family afterwards removed to Crickhowell. From the lane just beyond, the Church of Partricio comes in sight. The key had been procured from the hands of the clerk, who had reached the patriarchal age of 93, and had only failed for the last year or two in the full performance of his duties.

The church of the holy Saint Ishaw is situated on the left bank of the little rivulet Nant Mair, or Mary's Brook, a name which he probably gave to it in honour of the Blessed Virgin. One spring which issues from the ground near the bridge to join its waters is called "Ffynnon Ishaw," the holy spring of St. Ishaw. It is walled in, and small square spaces are left in the walls seemingly for votive offerings. The water was deliciously cool and pure, and the wild flowers around, and within it even, very pretty and appropriate. A nightingale was singing in a little cluster of low bushes by the Nant Mair, and the members halted to listen to its varied notes.

They

The visitors were received at the church by the Rev. T. Jones, the rector of Llanbedr and Partricio, with great kindness and courtesy. Mr. Jones brought with him some MSS. and other books of the highest antiquarian interest. formerly belonged to, and were written or collected by, that celebrated antiquary, Archdeacon Payne, who was rector of the parish at the end of the last and beginning of the present century. The only regret was that a day or two could not be spent there to properly examine them.

The visitors examined for themselves all the many objects of interest-the font, the rood loft, the several altar stones, and the grim skeleton on the walls within the church; and without, the yew tree of many centuries, half dead, with a vigorous young mountain ash growing from its hollow centre, about six feet from the ground; and the shaft of the cross of the 15th century, on the north side of which a strong oak beam was cramped with iron to the upper step, the object of which was a complete puzzle. The ollowing paper was then read :

ON THE CHURCH

OF

PARTRICIO OR MERTHYR

ISHEW, (OR ISHEW THE MARTYR).

By MR. F. R. KEMPSON, F.R.I.B.A.

SINCE the President asked me to describe the very interesting little church of Partrishaw to the Woolhope Club, I have consulted Jones's History of Breconshire, The Cambrian Archæologia, The Ecclesiologist, Liber Llandavensis, and an interesting paper by Mr. John Davies, who is well known as an antiquary living in the neighbourhood. I have not been able to see Professor Westwood's paper published in the Archæologia Cambrensis, 1856, but in his Lapidarium Walliæ, 1876 to 1879, he refers to his former paper. Mr. Nash Stephenson wrote a short account some years ago of "Partricio," together with his history of Llanthony and other places of interest in the neighbourhood. These are the sources from which I have gleaned my information, but I have not even learned the name of the church.

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Name.-It is commonly spelt "Partricio," but frequently "Partrishow" or 'Patrishow," and sometimes "Partrishaw." The name, many people think, is a corruption of " 'Parthan-y-Ishow," the parcel or territory of " Ishow." Liber Llandavensis states, that Herwald or Herewald, Bishop of Llandaff at the time of the Conquest, consecrated the church as the church of "Methur Issur." St. Patrick has been named as the patron saint, I do not know on what authority, except that the church is known sometimes as the church of "St. Patricio or "Partricio." Mr. Prek. Phillott has suggested to me that the name may be a corruption from "Peter Issui," a combination of the name of the patron saint of the parish and mother church of "Llambeder" or "Llanpeter," with that of "Issui" or "Ishaw," the hermit who became a martyr. I think, however, that such an authority as the Liber Llandavensis should be trusted until another can be found to be more worthy of credence.

The Well.-The well near the church is a holy well, dedicated to "St. Ishaw," and so called to this day.

Date.-Partrishaw has, I believe, always been described as a late church,* Bloxam says not earlier than the latter part of the 15th century, or reign of Henry VII.; but when speaking of a little chapel, or Bettws, in a mountain district, it is, I think, by no means safe to say that it must be a late one simply because no early architectural features have yet been acknowledged to exist in the main structure. Such features are, in little churches among the mountains, not infrequently conspicuous by their absence, or lie hid for centuries. Many such churches and chapels-built, I believe, at quite an early date-possess no mouldings or architectural features in the main structure from which the date can be

*Mr. Matthew Holbeche Bloxam contributed a short paper to the Archæologia Cambrensis of 1874.

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