A Tour throughout South Wales and Monmouthshire Part 10

Among a thousand other instances of his magical skill, they confidently a.s.sure you, that when he was a boy, being ordered to protect some corn from the birds, he conjured all the crows in the neighbourhood into a barn without a roof, and by force of his incantations obliged them to remain there while he visited Grosmont fair. A greater service that he performed for the country was, his building the bridge over the Monnow in one night by the agency of one of his familiars. Long did his strange actions frighten men out of their wits; and at length, dying, he outwitted the devil; for, in consideration of services while living, he agreed to surrender himself to his satanic majesty after his death, whether he was buried in or out of church; but, by ordering his body to be interred under the church wall, he contrived to slip out of the contract. A stone in the church-yard, near the chancel, is said to mark the spot of this interment.

Higher tradition relates, that this extraordinary-personage was a monk, who, possessing a greater knowledge in natural philosophy than could at that time be generally comprehended, was reputed a sorcerer. The family of the Scudamores, at Kentchurch-house, about a mile from Grosmont, where he became domesticated, had a Latin translation of the Bible written by him on vellum, but which is now lost. An ancient painting of him upon wood is, however, preserved in the mansion; and a cellar in the house is described to have been the stable of his horses; steeds of no vulgar pedigree, which carried him through the air with more than the speed of witches.

From a collation of different legends and circ.u.mstances, several respectable enquirers are inclined to believe, that this necromancer was no other than the famous Owen Glendower; who, after his defeat, and the dispersion of his army, concealed himself in the disguise of a bard, or wizard. A strong circ.u.mstance which favours this conjecture is, that the daughter of Glendower married a Scudamore, who at the time occupied Kentchurch-house. It may also be remarked, that neither the time of the chief's death, nor the place of his sepulture, were ever positively ascertained.

Upon our return to Monmouth from this excursion, we had the good fortune to fall into the company of Mr. Wathen of Hereford, the benefit of whose local information and obliging a.s.siduities has been felt by numerous tourists, as well as ourselves. This gentleman pointed out the most striking beauties of the Wye toward Ross; and of his directions we gladly availed ourselves the following morning, when we bade adieu to Wales and Monmouths.h.i.+re. But, as it is my object to effect a general delineation of that tract of country, I shall not hesitate to break the thread of my tour, and suspend a description of the Wye's scenery and some further continuance of our route, while I traverse the north-western part of Monmouths.h.i.+re, and the eastern frontier of South-Wales, which yet remains unexplored. In this part of my work, I must describe things as they appeared to me six years since, when I visited this portion of country in my return from a tour through the North of England and Wales, a.s.sisted by the best doc.u.ments and observations that I have since been able to procure.

CHAP. XIX.

ABBEY OF GRACE-DIEU-SIR DAVID GAM-WHITE CASTLE-ABERGAVENNY HILLS-THE TOWN, CASTLE, AND CHURCH.

Within a short distance southward of the road from Monmouth to Abergavenny, and about three miles from the first-mentioned town, are the small remains of the abbey of GRACE-DIEU, chiefly formed into a barn, situated on a sequestered bank of the Trothy. A farm on the opposite side of the river was the park belonging to the abbey; and hence it is called Parc-gras-dieu farm; the house of which is built on the ruins of the ancient lodge.

LLANDILO CRESSENEY, the seat of Richard Lewis, Esq.; pleasingly situated in a rich undulating country to the south of the road, about half way to Abergavenny, is a modern house built on the site of an ancient mansion of the Powells. The position commands an interesting prospect of the neighbouring country; and in the home view the church of Llandilo, with its high spire, forms a picturesque and leading object. In an adjoining field, belonging to a farm that was formerly the red-deer park of Raglan castle, is the site of Old Court, once the residence of the celebrated Sir David Gam, not less known for his courageous report upon having reconnoitred the enemy before the battle of Agincourt ("An't please you, my liege, there are enough to be kilted, enough to run away, and enough to be taken prisoners") than for his valorous achievements and preservation of the king's life in the encounter, though at the expence of his own. The dukes of Beaufort and the earls of Pembroke are descended from Gladys, one of his numerous progeny, which tradition has by no means curtailed; for it is a.s.serted, that his children formed a line reaching from his house to the church.

The ruins of WHITE CASTLE are very considerable, crowning the summit of a ridgy eminence a mile and a half to the north of Llandilo. Their figure is irregular; flanked by six circular towers, which, with the ramparts, are pierced with oilets. Two advancing ma.s.sive towers guard the entrance, which was provided with a portcullis and drawbridge, and rendered still more formidable by an uncommonly large outwork beyond the moat, which is remarkably deep. This ruin is from every point of view imposing and grand; but its ponderous unornamented towers, and its lofty battlements, whose dark colour is rendered still more dismal by the broad shadows of impendent foliage, rather conspire to raise an image of baronical haughtiness and oppression, than of its show and hospitality; yet, in the time of Elizabeth, Churchyard describes it to be

"A statelie seate, a loftie princelie place, Whose beautie gives the simple soyle some grace."

From the architecture of this castle I should suppose its antiquity to be at least coeval with the first settlement of the Normans in Gwent, if not even more remote. Its history is common with that of Screnfrith and Grosmont; but over both these it holds a decided superiority in extent, and ma.s.siveness of construction.

On approaching ABERGAVENNY, the tourist's attention is involuntarily arrested by the singular beauty and variety of interest which the spot embraces, particularly in its encircling hills. The road skirting the Little Skyridd, a well-formed hill richly laid out in wood and pasture, opens to a fine display of the vale of Usk beneath; on the opposite side of which the continuous ridge of the wild Pontypool hills, which form the western boundary of the county, terminate in the heathy high-swelling Blorenge: a tract of wood sweeps along its base, and mixes with the sylvan knoll of Lanfoist, decorating its northern extremity. Further to the right, the elegant smooth cone of the Sugar-loaf, the highest of the Monmouths.h.i.+re mountains, presents itself, issuing from among the four tributary eminences of the Pen-y-vale hills. Eastward of this mountain is the Great Skyridd, an object of considerable interest; its bipart.i.te and truly Alpine summit, without being a forced opposition, strikingly contrasts the general undulating line of the neighbouring hills, and rears a distinct and n.o.ble character on the scene. The views from this mountain are scarcely inferior to those from the Sugar-loaf; while its craggy form, its asperitous summit, jagged into an immense fissure, and shelving to a ridge apex of fearful narrowness, impress a mixed emotion of awe and admiration on the adventurous climber of the height, that more than compensates for a small inferiority of alt.i.tude. There was formerly, at the top of this mountain, a Roman Catholic chapel dedicated to St. Michael, of which no vestiges remain; but a remembrance of the site is preserved in a hollow place formed by the superst.i.tious, who, resorting here on Michaelmas eve, carry away the earth to strew over the sepulchres of their friends. According to the barometrical measurement of General Roy, the height of the Sugar-loaf mountain is 1852 feet perpendicular above the Gavenny rivulet, near its junction with the Usk.

The Blorenge is 1720, and the Great Skyridd 1498 feet from the same level.

The expansive bases of these mountains, nearly approximating, descend to a finely-wooded fertile valley; through which the river Usk, rus.h.i.+ng from a majestic portal of wood, winds in a bright translucid stream, with all the impetuosity of its mountain character. At the foot of one of the confederated hills sustaining the towering cone of the Sugar-loaf, which gently inclines to the river, ABERGAVENNY is situated; a straggling irregular town, pleasingly interspersed with trees, but deriving its highest attraction from the charms of its position.

Upon an eminence above the river, near the southern extremity of the town, is the ruined castle, which in its present state exhibits very few memorials of former magnificence. The gate-house, or princ.i.p.al entrance, is tolerably entire, and vestiges of two courts may be traced among the broken walls; but of the citadel no traces remain, although an intrenched mound close to the ruins evidently marks its site. The town was also fortified, and many portions of the work remain, particularly Tudor's gate, the western entrance, furnished with two portcullisses, and remarkable for the beautifully composed landscape seen through it. This castle is said to have been built by a giant named Agros: without contending for the accuracy of this tradition, however, it is certain, that the princ.i.p.al part was erected by the Normans upon the site of a British fortress.

In the twelfth century some native forces, headed by Sitfylt ap Dyfnwald, a Welch prince, a.s.sailed this castle, and took prisoners the Anglo-Norman garrison, with their chief, William-de-Braose, lord of Brecon. William being, upon an adjustment of differences, reinstated in his possessions, invited Sitfylt, his son Geoffery, and other chieftains of Gwent, to a great feast at Abergavenny Castle, where they were all treacherously murdered: he then surprised Sitfylt's house, and slew his other son, Cadwallader, in the presence of his mother. This barbarity did not escape punishment. William, flying his country, died a wretched wanderer at Paris; and his wife and son were famished in Windsor Castle. The fate of his grandson, Reginald, may also be considered in the light of a retribution: Llewelyn prince of Wales, suspecting him, as Dugdale relates, "of over much familiarity with his wife," subtilly invited him to an eastern feast; and towards the close of the banquet, charging him with the act, threw him into prison, where he suffered a violent death, together with the adultress. In 1273, we find the country of Overwent, including the castle of Abergavenny, in the possession of John de Hastings, a very pink of chivalry. A succession of valorous knights inherited this domain; but Richard Earl of Warwick, who became lord of Abergavenny in the commencement of the fifteenth century, surpa.s.sed them all, and even John himself, in military fame, and manners debonnair: he signalized himself in tournaments at most of the courts in Europe, and obtained the honourable appellation of "the father of courtesy."

The church is a large Gothic structure, and appears to have been built in the form of a Roman cross, but is now curtailed of its transepts; at the juncture of one of them, a circular arch, now filled up, wears a Norman character, and seems to have been part of the original building. Three arches, curiously dissimilar, separate the north aile from the nave. The choir remains in its antique state, with stalls for a prior and his monks, formed of oak, and rudely carved; and the ailes on either side are furnished with the monuments of several ill.u.s.trious personages.

On the north of the choir is the figure of a man in a coat of mail, with a bull at his feet; supposed to be the monument of Sir Edward Nevill, which is thus explained by Churchyard:

"His force was much; for he by strength With bull did struggle so, He broke clean off his horns at length, And therewith let him go."

On the opposite side is the rec.u.mbent effigy of an armed knight, his legs across, {308} and his feet resting on a greyhound. Of this the s.e.xton's legend relates, that the knight, returning home, saw his infant son lying on the floor covered with blood, with his cradle overturned at his side, and the hound standing by, with his mouth besmeared with gore.

Conceiving that the dog had attacked the child, he instantly killed it; but soon discovered, that the blood issued from a large serpent that had writhed about the child, and which this faithful animal had destroyed.

In the middle of the south aile of the choir, generally called the Herberts' chapel, is the effigy of Sir William ap Thomas, and his wife Gladys, daughter of the celebrated Sir David Gam. Beneath a handsome alabaster monument, at the further end of the chapel, repose the ashes of Sir Richard Herbert, of Coldbrook, and his wife. This Sir Richard, a younger son of the just mentioned Sir William ap Thomas, was a man of gigantic stature and uncommon strength. In the contest between the houses of York and Lancaster, he with his brother the Earl of Pembroke supported the White rose at the battle of Banbury, where he was at length taken prisoner, and finally executed by the successful faction; but not until he had pa.s.sed and repa.s.sed twice through the adverse army, killing with a pole-ax no less than 140 men; which, his ill.u.s.trious descendant and biographer, lord Herbert of Cherbury, remarks, is more than is famed of Amadis de Gaul, or the Knight of the Sun. The richest monument in the church is that of Sir Richard Herbert of Ewias, his nephew, which occupies a recess in the south wall of the chapel.

Before the dissolution of religious houses, this church belonged to a priory of Benedictine monks, which was founded by Hamelin Baladun, {310} who is also said to have built the castle. The priory house, adjoining the nave of the church, is converted into a commodious dwelling, which was lately tenanted by the Gunter and Milborne family. The free-school in the town was founded by Henry the Eighth, and amply endowed with the revenues of forfeited monasteries, &c.

Abergavenny was a Roman town, the Gobannium of Antoninus. Leland describes it to be "a faire waulled town, meately well inhabited;" and an account of Monmouths.h.i.+re written in 1602 represents it as "a fine town, wealthy and thriving, and the very best in the s.h.i.+re." But during the last century it was in a very declining state until the establishment of some great iron-works, which have lately sprung up in the adjacent mountains. When full-bottomed flaxen wigs were the rage, the town enjoyed a temporary prosperity from a method peculiar to its inhabitants of bleaching hair; but, perriwigs being no longer the rage, the place was hastening to decay: just at this juncture the faculty proclaimed that goats-whey was a specific in consumptive cases; and crowds of invalids, under the fiat of death, immediately enlivened the town. But the fas.h.i.+ons of doctors are no more stationary than those of beaux; the _ton_ for goats-whey soon diminished; and, deprived of patients as well as perriwigs, the place was relapsing into poverty and desertion, when the fortunate discovery of the Blaenavon iron mines, (a grand concern in the recesses of the Blorenge mountain well worth the tourist's attention) gave a new face to the town, and still daily encreases its population.

CHAP. XX.

WERNDEE-FAMILY PRIDE-LANTHONY ABBEY-OLD CASTLE.

About two miles from Abergavenny is WERNDEE, a poor patched-up house: though once a mansion of no less magnificence than antiquity, it is now only interesting as being considered to have been the spot where the prolific Herbert race was first implanted in Britain. Henry de Herbert, chamberlain to king Henry the First, is supposed to have been their great ancestor. Of the vast possessions that formerly supported the grandeur of the Herberts, the inheritance of Mr. Proger, the last lineal descendant from the elder branch of this family, who died about twenty years since, had dwindled to less than two hundred a year. Mr. c.o.xe relates an anecdote of this gentleman's pride of ancestry, which may be compared with the remarks on Perthir; {313} at the same time, it conveys a brief outline of the family's genealogy.

Mr. Proger accidentally met a stranger near his house, who made various enquiries respecting the prospects and local objects of the situation; and at length demanded, "Pray, whose is this antique mansion before us?"-"That, Sir, is Werndee: a very ancient house; for _out_ of it _came_ the earls of Pembroke of the first line, and the earls of Pembroke the second line; the lords Herbert of Cherbury, the Herberts of Coldbrook, Rumney, Cardiff, and York; the Morgans of Acton; the earl of Hunsdon; the Jones's of Treowen and Lanarth, and all the Powells. _Out_ of this house also, by the female line, _came_ the dukes of Beaufort."-"And pray, Sir, who lives there now?"-"I do, Sir."-"Then pardon me, Sir-do not lose sight of all these prudent examples; but _come out_ of it yourself; or 'twill tumble and crush you."

A princ.i.p.al excursion from Abergavenny is that which leads northward to Lanthony abbey, a majestic ruin seated in a deep recess of the Black mountains, at the very extremity of the county. The first part of the route lies through a romantic pa.s.s between the Skyridd and Sugar-loaf mountains, upon the Hereford turnpike. Proceeding about two miles, the church of Landeilo Bertholly appears on the right; and not far from it an antique mansion called the White-house, a residence of the Floyers.

Another ancient house occurs at the village of Llanvihangel Crickhornell, seen through groves of firs, lately a seat of the Arnolds, but now occupied as a farm-house. From this spot a ditch-like road, almost impracticable for carriages, strikes off among the mountains,

"Through tangled forests, and through dang'rous ways,"

carried upon precipices impendent over the brawling torrent of the Hondy.

Sometimes the road opens to scenes of the most romantic description, where, at an immense depth beneath, the torrent is seen raging in a bed of rocks, and mountains of the most imposing aspect rise from the valley,-

"The nodding horrors of whose shady brows Threat the forlorn and wand'ring traveller."

Immediately to the left of the road rises the Gaer, a huge rocky hill crowned with an ancient encampment. On the opposite side of the river, fearfully hanging on a steep cliff, and beneath a menacing hill bristled with innumerable craigs, is the romantic village of CWMJOY. Landscapes of the boldest composition would be continual, but that the road, formed into a deep hollow, and overtopped by hedge-row elms, excludes the traveller from almost every view but that of his embowered track. The pedestrian, however, is at liberty, while ranging among heaths and fields above the road, to enjoy the wild grandeur of the country, which will hardly fail to repay him for his additional toil.

In the deep gloomy vale of Ewias, encircled by the barren summits of the Black mountains, but enjoying some degree of local cultivation, and enlivened by the crystalline Hondy, is situated the ruin of LANTHONY ABBEY.

[Picture: Lanthony Abbey]

Venerable and grand, but wholly devoid of ornament, it partakes of the character of the surrounding scenery. Not a single tendril of ivy decorates the ma.s.sive walls of the structure, and but a sprinkling of shrubs and light branchy trees fringe the high parapets, or shade the broken fragments beneath.

"Where rev'rend shrines in Gothic grandeur stood, The nettle or the noxious night-shade spreads; And ashlings, wafted from the neighbouring wood, Through the worn turrets wave their trembling heads."

The area of the church is not very extensive; the length is 212 feet; the breadth 50; and it measures 100 across the transepts. The roof has long since fallen in, and a great part of the south wall is now a prostrate ruin; but the view afforded of the interior, in consequence, is extremely grand and picturesque. A double row of pointed arches, reposing on ma.s.sive piers, separate the side ailes from the nave; above which, divided from the Gothic form by a strait band of fascia, is a series of small circular arches: an intermixture and arrangement of the two forms that characterize the earliest use of Gothic architecture. Two lofty arches, rising from the middle of the church, still sustain a ma.s.sive portion of the tower, whose doubtfully poised and ponderous bulk seriously menaces the adventurous explorer of the ruin. The grandeur of the western front cannot be pa.s.sed unnoticed; nor, looking over the fragments of the choir, the fine view of the inside ruin, seen through the great eastern arch of the tower; neither is a small chapel adjoining the south transept, with a well-formed engrained roof, to be neglected: the transept is remarkable for a large Norman archway that led into the south aile of the choir.

Many portions of building appear in detached heaps near the abbey church, particularly a bold arch in a neighbouring barn, which seems to have formed the princ.i.p.al entrance to the abbey. Among these the natives point out a low subterraneous pa.s.sage, faced with hewn stone, which they suppose to have had a connexion with Old Castle, about three miles distant.

St. David, the uncle of king Arthur (say ancient legends), was so struck with this sequestered recess, then almost unconscious of a human footstep, that he built a chapel on the spot, and pa.s.sed many years in it as a hermit. William, a retainer of the earl of Hereford's in the reign of William Rufus, being led into the valley in pursuit of a deer, espied the hermitage. The deep solitude of the place, and the mysterious appearance of the building, conspired to fill him with religious-enthusiasm; and he instantly disclaimed all worldly enjoyments for a life of prayer and mortification.

In a curious account of the abbey, written by one of its monks, which is preserved in Dugdale's Monasticon, and translated into English by Atkyns, in his History of Gloucesters.h.i.+re, it is recorded, that "He laid aside his belt and girded himself with a rope; instead of fine linen, he covered himself with hair-cloth; and instead of his soldier's robe, he loaded himself with weighty irons. The suit of armour, which before defended him from the darts of his enemies, he still wore as a garment to harden him against the soft temptations of his old enemy Satan; that, as the outward man was afflicted by austerity, the inner-man might be secured for the service of G.o.d. That his zeal might not cool, he thus crucified himself, and continued this hard armour on his body until it was worn out with rust and age."

His austerity of life, and sanct.i.ty, not only drew to him a colleague (Ernesi, chaplain to Maud wife of Henry the First), but excited the reverence of many high characters, and induced Hugh de Laci, earl of Hereford, to found a priory of regular canons of the order of St. Austin on the site of the Hermitage. The inst.i.tution adopted William's mortifying system, and its reputation occasioned numerous donations to be offered; but they were constantly refused, and the acquisition of wealth deprecated as a dreadful misfortune. William was determined "to dwell poor in the house of G.o.d." The monk of Lanthony comically relates, that "Queen Maud, not sufficiently acquainted with the sanct.i.ty and disinterestedness of William, once desired permission to put her hand into his bosom; and when he with great modesty submitted to her importunity, she conveyed a large purse of gold between his coa.r.s.e s.h.i.+rt and iron boddice; and thus by a pleasant and innocent subtlety administered some comfortable relief to him. But oh the wonderful contempt of the world! He displayed a rare example, that the truest happiness consists in possessing little or nothing! He complied, indeed, but unwillingly, and only with a view that the queen might employ her devout liberality in adorning the church." His scruples thus overcome, a new church on a more magnificent plan was erected (that which now appears); it soon displayed the usual pomp of the craft, and in less than thirty years the monks came to one opinion, that "the outward man"

deserved consideration; that the "place was unfit for a reasonable creature, much less for religious persons:" nay some said, that "they wished every stone of the foundation, "a stout hare;" others, still more wicked, "that every stone was at the bottom of the sea." Hence, in the year 1136, we find a new Lanthony abbey built and consecrated near Gloucester, which, although at first only a cell to our abbey, soon a.s.sumed a priority over the parent foundation. The treasures, library, rich vestments, and even bells, were removed to the new house: the old Lanthony then came to be considered as a prison by the fat monks of the Severn, who sent thither only "their old and useless members."

In doleful mood the monk complains, "We are made the sc.u.m and outcast of the brethren."-"They permitted the monastery to be reduced to such poverty, that the friars were without surplices, and compelled to perform the duties of the church against the customs and rules of the order.

Sometimes they had no breeches, and could not attend divine service."

Thus it appears, that eventually the condition of the monks, though sore against their wills, reverted to the intention of their founder. The monastery continued in this unthriving state till the dissolution of those concerns; when, according to Dugdale, the abbey near Gloucester was valued at 648_l._ 19_s._ 11_d._ and this in Monmouths.h.i.+re at 71_l._ 3_s._ 2_d._

OLDCASTLE, a little village on the eastern slope of the Black mountains which skirt the vale of Ewias on the right, is supposed by Gale and Stukeley to have been the ancient Blestium, but upon grounds that are very inconclusive: true it is, however, that several encampments near the spot wear a Roman character, and they were in the habit of raising such camps near their station. But the place is more noticed as having been the residence of Sir John Oldcastle, Lord Cobham, the companion of Henry the Fifth, and afterwards chief of the Lollards, and martyr to their religious views. His ancient mansion, called the court-house, was taken down about thirty years ago; so that nothing now remains to satisfy the antiquary.

But the picturesque traveller will hardly fail of a lively interest, while, traversing the superior heights of the neighbouring mountains, he views the grand extent of the Monmouths.h.i.+re wilds, and traces the different combinations of its majestic hills, which in some parts range into the most sinuous forms, in others extend for many miles into direct longitudinal ridges; or, when, withdrawing from the sterile dignity of the high lands, his eye gratefully reposes on the gentle vallies that sweep beneath their brows, enlivened by glistening streams, and rich in all the luxuriance of high cultivation.