A Tour throughout South Wales and Monmouthshire Part 11

CHAP. XXI.

RE-ENTRANCE OF SOUTH WALES-CRICKHOWELL-TRETOWER-BRECON CASTLE AND PRIORY-ROAD TO LLANDOVERY-TRECASTLE-Pa.s.s OF CWM-DUR-LLANDOVERY CASTLE-ROAD FROM BRECON TO HEREFORD-BRUNLYSS CASTLE-FEMALE VENGEANCE-HAY-CLIFFORD CASTLE.

The road from Abergavenny to Brecon, bordering the clear and lively Usk in a romantic valley, soon leaves the charming county of Monmouth; but is attended with such a continuance of agreeable scenery as may diminish in a considerable degree the regret of the tourist. Among the verdant accompaniments of the serpentizing river, the rich groves and smiling lawns of Dany Park are conspicuous, swelling above a fertile vale, and backed by a range of wild mountains. Nearly opposite this, in a field to the right of the road and the fifteen mile-stone from Brecon, is a single upright stone, about fourteen feet high, conjectured to be a monument of the druidical ages.

CRICKHOWELL, about two miles farther, is an old mean-built town; but, hanging on the steep declivities of a fine hill, and dignified with the picturesque ruin of a castle, it is an interesting object in the approach. The extent of this fragment of antiquity (of obscure origin), sometimes called Alashby Castle, is by no means considerable; the foundation of the keep, seated on a high artificial mound, denotes much original strength, and all the standing walls shew a very remote erection; although a few enrichments of later times may be perceived beneath the thickly-woven ivy. A narrow Gothic bridge crosses the Usk here to the pleasing village of Langottoc, the neighbourhood of which is enlivened with several handsome seats; but no one is more remarkable for the excellence of its position and the singularity of its design than a lately-erected residence of Admiral Gell's.

The road continues scenic and entertaining to the small village of TRETOWER, only to be noticed for a few picturesque fragments of its castle, once the residence of Mynarch lord of Brecon. Then winding round a conical eminence, the road ascends a mighty hill called the Bwlch, which term signifies a rent in a mountain: during which ascent, a farewel view of the vale of the Usk, with a small tributary valley, and its appendant stream descending from some gloomy mountains to the north, and joining it near the castle of Tretower, is truly interesting and grand.

But from these wide-ranging views, and all external scenery, the tourist becomes shut up on entering the pa.s.s of the mountains, a sterile hollow, from which he emerges on a subject of an entirely opposite and very singular description. Surrounded by dark mountains, melancholy and waste, appears an extensive lake called LANGOR'S POOL, upwards of six miles in circ.u.mference; which, as the natives a.s.sure you, is the site of a large city swallowed up by an earthquake, and is so well furnished with perch, tench, and eels, as to be one-third fish to two-thirds water.

In the neighbourhood of the lake north-eastward, and near the head of the Lleveny brook, which empties itself into the pool, I find described the ruins of BLAEN-LLEVENY CASTLE. It was fortified by Peter FitzHerbert, descended of Bernard de Newmarch, lord of Brecon, according to the opinion of some antiquaries, upon the site of the Roman Loventium.

The road soon descends to the fine vale of Brecon, grandly accompanied by a semicircular range of mountains; where, proudly rising in superior majesty, the Van rears its furrowed and bipart.i.te summit high above the clouds. Advancing, cultivation takes a more extensive sweep, and picturesque disposition becomes frequent. The Usk flowing round the foot of the Bwlch, cloathed with the extensive plantations of Buckland-house, salutes the beholder with renewed attractions; and farther up the vale laves the charming woody eminence of Peterstone in its sinuous career.

On the left of the road, about five miles from Brecon, is a stone pillar, six feet in height, and nearly cylindrical; on which is an inscription that Camden read, N--- FILIUS VICTORINI, but which is now almost obliterated. He supposes it a monument of later ages than the Romans, although inscribed with their characters, and wearing the general appearance of a Roman _cippus_. In the parish of Llahn Hamwalch, standing on the summit of a hill near the church, (which is to the left of the road a little beyond the former monument) I find described St.

Iltut's hermitage, composed of four large flat stones; three of which, standing upright, are surmounted by the fourth, so as to form a sort of hut, eight feet long, four wide, and nearly the same in height. This kind of monument is called a Kist-vaen, a variety of the Cromlech order, and supposed to have been applied to the same purposes.

BRECON is delightfully situated upon a gentle swell above the Usk, overlooking a fertile highly-cultivated valley enlivened with numerous seats, and enriched with several sylvan knolls. On one side of the town, beneath the majestic hanging groves of the priory, the impetuous Hondy loudly murmurs, and unites with the Usk a small distance beyond its handsome bridge. Though the town boasts many capital residences, yet, enc.u.mbered by a number of mean hovels even in its princ.i.p.al situations, and deficient in regulations of cleanliness, it fails to create any idea of importance. Its once magnificent castle is now curtailed to a very insignificant ruin; and that little is so choaked up with miserable habitations, as to exhibit no token of antique grandeur: some broken walls and a solitary tower compose its remains.

BRECON CASTLE was founded by Bernard de Newmarch in the reign of William Rufus. Llewelyn prince of Wales besieged it when a.s.serting the rights of his ancestry and friends, but without success. Pa.s.sing through the hands of the Braoses and Bohuns, it fell to the king-making Buckingham, when it became the seat of chivalric splendour. To his care Dr. Morton, bishop of Ely, was committed by Richard the Third; and the remaining turret is still called Ely tower by the natives, and described to have been his prison. Buckingham, fired with resentment by the ingrat.i.tude of Richard, whom he had raised to power, contrived, with his prisoner, in this place, the means of his overthrow. The plot succeeded, but the duke was betrayed and taken before its completion, and lost his head: the more wary priest retired in secresy during its operation, and preserved his to wear the metropolitan mitre in the ensuing reign. Bernard also founded a Benedictine priory for six monks westward of the town; it was dedicated to St. John, subordinate to Battle abbey in Suss.e.x, and became collegiate under Henry the Eighth. The church is a grand cruciform building, 200 feet in length by 60 in width, and has an embattled tower 90 feet high rising from the centre of the building. A cloister extends from the church to the priory-house; where the tourist, as he paces the refectory, or great dining-room, may speculate on monkish carousals, where blue-eyed nuns, were jovially toasted, and secret confessions antic.i.p.ated.

But the most fascinating attraction of the town is its two delightful walks: the one traced on the margin of the n.o.ble Usk; the other, called the priory walk, a luxuriant grove impendent over the brawling Hondy, once a.s.signed to the meditations of monkish fraud, but now more happily applied to the use of the townspeople, and enlivened on fine evenings by a brilliant promenade of Cambrian beauties.

This town, built on the site of a Roman station, {330} was originally called Aber-Hondy. After the departure of the Romans, the lords.h.i.+p of Brecon remained in the hands of the Britons till the reign of William Rufus; when Bernard de Newmarch, a Norman baron of great skill and prowess, having a.s.sembled a large body of troops, made a successful inroad into the country, killed the British chief Bledhyn ap Maenyrch, and retailed his son prisoner in Brecon castle during his life; though he, at the same time, allowed him a nominal share of his father's territories. He then fortified the town with a castle, and an encircling wall, having three gates; and further strengthened his cause by taking to wife Nesta, grand-daughter of Gruffyth prince of Wales.

A road pa.s.sing from Brecon through Llandovery to Llandilo, in Caermarthens.h.i.+re, we did not travel; but find it described as highly picturesque, and otherwise interesting. For several miles it traverses an undulating district enlivened by the Usk; which now, approaching its source in the Trecastle hills, a.s.sumes all the impetuosity of a mountain torrent. The s.p.a.cious lawns, long avenues of trees, and extensive plantations of Penbont, grace the bonders of the stream about three miles from Brecon; and on the left of the road, a small distance further, appear the trifling remains of Davenock castle. TRECASTLE, ten miles from Brecon, a small village but possessing a good inn, is deprived of every vestige of its ancient fortification. From this place the road winds for nine miles to Llandovery, in a deep valley, between the mountains, called CWM-DWR, a romantic pa.s.s watered by a lively stream, and dotted with numerous cottages, whose fertile hollow is beautifully contrasted by the wild aspect of the impendent heights. LLANDOVERY is a small irregular town, nearly encompa.s.sed by rivulets, and only to be noticed by the picturesque traveller for the small ruins of its ivy-mantled castle. The road then continues to Llandilo on a high terrace, ornamented on the right by the groves of Taliaris and Abermarle parks, and overlooking the upper vale of Towey, rich in cultivation and the beauty of its stream.

On the road to Hereford from Brecon, about seven miles, is BRUNLYSS CASTLE; the princ.i.p.al and almost only feature of which is a high round tower on an artificial mount. Its foundation is uncertain, but cannot be later than the first settlement of the Normans in the county. There is a curious circ.u.mstance connected with an incident in the history of this castle, which I think very probably suggested the character of Faulconbridge in Shakespeare's play of King John. The acknowledged son and heir of Bernard de Newmarch and his wife Nesta was Mahel, a dauntless, youth, who, after the death of Bernard, having affronted a paramour of his mother's, and upbraided the matron herself, became in a most extraordinary manner deprived of his inheritance. Nesta, enraged at the interference of her son in her tender arrangements, presented herself before Henry the Second, and solemnly made oath that he was not the son of Bernard lord of Breton; but was begotten by a Cambrian warrior, thereby proclaiming her son a b.a.s.t.a.r.d, and satisfying her revenge, though at the expence of every maternal tie and of the strongest sentiments of female worth. Bernard's estates, in consequence, fell to his daughter Sibyl wife of Milo earl of Hereford; and Mahel, ejected from his patrimony, became a lawless desperado. Once, as he was on a predatory excursion over the domains of David Fitzgerald, bishop of St. David's, he was entertained by Walter de Clifford in Brunlyss Castle for one night; when the building took fire, and he, in endeavouring to escape, was crushed to death by the falling of a stone.

HAY, a small populous town on this road, at the extremity of the princ.i.p.ality, occupies an eminence near the banks of the Wye, and was formerly graced with a fine castle, which is now reduced to a few broken walls; but CLIFFORD, a mile or two further, on the upper road to Hereford, still exhibits the majestic remains of its castle, crowning a bold hill which towers above the river, and has been long renowned as having been the birth-place of the lovely, but frail fair Rosamond.

CHAP. XXII.

BUALT-PRINCE LLEWELYN-RHAYDERGOWY-CARACTACUS'S CAMP-OFFA'S d.y.k.e-KNIGHTON-PRESTEIGN-OLD AND NEW RADNOR-LLANDRINDOD WELLS.

Proceeding northward from Brecon, the road pa.s.ses over an abrupt succession of hills and hollows near the impatient Hondy, which is seen to extend for several miles through a wild romantic valley. On leaving the lively rivulet's devious course, the road traverses an extensive hilly tract, from whose summits a grand expansive valley, dignified with the sinuous Wye, bursts upon the view in a long continuance of varied scenery. The town of Bualt occupies a spot on the nearmost side of the vale, overhanging the pride of Welch rivers; and beyond its opposite hilly boundary, a majestic outline of distant mountains defines the horizon. A picturesque cascade, rus.h.i.+ng through a portal of rocks and woods to the left of the road, must not be pa.s.sed unnoticed; it occurs within a mile of Bualt; and after crossing the road beneath its bridge, the stream unites with the Wye.

BUALT is a small market-town comprised in two streets rising one over the other, upon the high shelving bank of the river. Although anciently and irregularly built, it is much resorted to by the neighbouring gentry, not less for the beauty of its position, than for the famed salubrity of its air. Camden supposes it to be the Bullac.u.m Silurum of Ptolemy, and the Burrium of Antoninus. Horseley, on the other hand, fixes upon Usk in Monmouths.h.i.+re as the site of that Roman station; while other antiquaries contend in favour of Caerphilly. However this may have been, the only vestige of high antiquity that now marks the place is a mound, the site of the keep of its castle, which was burnt down in 1690.

It was in the neighbourhood of Bualt, between the Wye and its tributary stream the Irvon, that the Cambrian warriors made their last stand for independence. The brave Llewelyn,

"Great patriot hero, ill-requited chief,"

after a transient victory at the foot of Snowdon, led his troops to this position, where they were unexpectedly attacked and defeated by the English forces, while Llewelyn, unarmed, was employed in a conference with some chieftains in a valley not far distant. The prince was informed of the event by the cries of his flying army; and all that prompt intrepidity could effect he exerted to rejoin his men; but in vain; the spear of his enemy pierced his side, and happily spared him the anguish of witnessing the irretrievable ruin of his country's liberties.

Edward's conduct to the body of this prince, royal like himself, of a lineage still more ancient and n.o.ble, and who boldly fell a.s.serting the rights of his country and inheritance, has affixed a blot on his memory, which not all his well-regulated ambition, not all the splendour of his victories, can gloss over, or efface from the page of history. The prince's head was received in London with such demonstrations of joy by the citizens, as might have suited a conquest over a predatory invader; it was carried on the point of a lance through Cheapside; and, after having been fixed in the pillory, was placed on the highest part of the tower of London, to glut the eyes of the mult.i.tude. So easy is it to impose on the natural feelings of a people once cajoled into an approval of military despotism and cruelty.

On leaving Bualt, and crossing its bridge, the tourist enters RADNORs.h.i.+RE, where the road, traced upon heights impendent over the Wye, commands one of the most beautifully romantic vallies in the princ.i.p.ality. The river, which we have before seen majestically flowing, rapid but unopposed, among flowery lawns, here, approaching its native source in the bosom of Plinlimmon, appears eddying, foaming, and roaring in a narrow channel, amid shelving rocks and disjointed craigs, a mere mountain torrent. With the accompaniments of towering precipices, naked rocks, and impendent cliffs, finely softened by overhanging branchy trees, or partially concealed by deep shadowy woods, and frequently enlivened by a stripe of verdant meadow, the river presents a succession of picturesque _morceaus_, the most striking imaginable; and fully compensates the bad state of the road in this part. A considerable range of prospect also presents itself on the right, from some favoured eminences, where a long series of moorish lumpy hills extend over the greater part of Radnors.h.i.+re, which shews but an indifferent mixture of cultivation with numerous heaths and forests.

An extensive mountainous dreary region,

"Where woods, and wilds, and th.o.r.n.y ways appear,"

occupies part of the counties of Brecon, Cardigan, and Radnor, westward of the Wye. Among these deep solitudes, Camden informs us, king Vortigern sought a refuge from the persecutions that his crimes and follies raised against him. His ultimate fate is wrapped in uncertainty; but his vileness needed not a more agonizing torture than his wounded conscience, whether recurring to his incestuous intercourse with his own offspring, or to his miserable policy in resting the defence of Britain upon the a.s.sistance of foreign troops.

RHAYDER-GOWY, wildly situated at the foot of the mountainous barrier between South and North Wales, consists of two streets of neatly whitened houses, and is graced with the vicinity of two churches. A castle also added to the consequence of the town in the time of the Welch princes; but none of its remains now appear, except a deep trench cut in the rock of the town, and three or four barrows, which are, no doubt, connected with its history. The market-house is a neat little building, though of rough stones; and the Red Lion inn is no less remarkable for its neatness and accommodation, useful though unimposing, than for the obliging a.s.siduities of its landlord.

The scenery of the Wye, close to this town, acquires an uncommon degree of grandeur. Raging in its rocky bed, the river is seen through the light foliage of impendent trees, and almost beneath a bold arch which bestrides the river, bounding over a ledge of rock in a fall of some depth; whence it tears its way among protruding craigs in a sheet of glistening foam, but is almost immediately concealed by the embowering ornaments of its banks.

Above the town of Rhayder, a bold hilly region, overspread with treacherous bogs, or broken into precipices of fearful depth, mixes with the magnificent forms of the North Wales mountains. Here nature wears her wildest garb; no stripe of cultivation controls the dreary majesty of the scene; the mountain sheep browse on the dizzy heights unmindful of danger; the hardy ponies here sport away their early years, unconscious of restraint; and, no less free, the bold mountaineer looks round his stormy world, nor hapless mourns the gayer spheres below:

"But calm, and bred in ignorance and toil, Each wish contracting, fits him to the soil.

Cheerful at morn, he wakes from short repose, Breathes the keen air, and carols as he goes; At night returning, every labour sped, He sits him down the monarch of a shed; Smiles by his cheerful fire, and round surveys His children's looks, that brighten at the blaze; While his lov'd partner, boastful of her h.o.a.rd, Displays her cleanly platter on the board:"

"Such are the charms to barren states a.s.sign'd, Their wants but few, their wishes all confin'd."

This district is, however, rich in mineral treasure; and several lead-mines, and one or two copper-mines, are worked with considerable spirit.

Here my observations upon South-Wales draw to a close: they have been very brief upon Radnors.h.i.+re; and yet the excursion on the banks of the Wye describes almost its only attraction. Indeed, this county is remarkably barren in subjects of picturesque beauty, memorials of antique grandeur, and remarkable towns and villas. I find but one religious house in this s.h.i.+re described in Dugdale's Monasticon, or Tanner's Not.i.tia Monastica, which is Abbey Cwm Hir, situated about six miles east of Rhayder; but I understand that no part of the building remains. It was founded for Cistercian monks by Cadwathelan ap Madoc in the year 1143, and must have been a very inconsiderable foundation, as its revenues at the suppression of monasteries were only valued at 28_l._ 14_s._ 4_d._

The castles that occur in this county are neither remarkable in their history nor venerable in decay. Yet frequent and memorable are the earthen works that characterize almost every hill in the county, which either wear the marks of cairns {343} or ancient encampments.

"'Twas on those downs, by Roman hosts annoy'd, Fought our bold fathers, rustic, unrefin'd!

Freedom's fair sons, in martial cares employ'd, They ting'd their bodies but unmask'd their mind."

On a hill near Knighton, at the eastern limit of the county, is still shewn the CAMP OF CARACTACUS; and an encampment on another hill separated from the first by a deep valley, is said to be that of the Roman general Ostorius. The Britons waited the attack of the enemy's legions in their advantageous position, and fought like men who valued life no longer than as it was connected with freedom; but their courage availed nothing before the skill and discipline of the Roman army; after an immense slaughter they gave way, and Caractacus's wife, daughter, and brothers, were taken prisoners. The king escaped, but was soon after betrayed into the hands of his enemies. His n.o.ble speech and deportment when brought before the Roman emperor, as transmitted to us by the pen of Tacitus, must ever excite admiration, and evince the immutable dignity of manly virtue, however bereft of the fact.i.tious splendour of power.

OFFA'S d.y.k.e also pa.s.ses near Knighton; the boundary established by Offa king of the Mercians between his dominions and Wales, after a decisive victory over the Britons. It formerly extended from the Dee to the mouth of the Wye; and it was enacted, that any Welchman found in arms on the English side of the boundary should have his right hand cut off.

KNIGHTON itself I find described to be an ordinary town, built on a steep bank of the Teme. Seven miles southward of it is PRESTEIGN, a better built and paved town than the former, and graced with a beautiful little eminence (the site of its castle), laid out in public walks. This town is considered as the modern capital of the county: in it are held the a.s.sizes; and, having the jail, it is farther distinguished with all the apprehended rogues in Radnors.h.i.+re. OLD RADNOR, three or four miles farther southward, Camden supposes to have been the Magoth of Antoninus, garrisoned by the Paciensian regiment in the reign of Theodosius the younger; but, whatever it may have been formerly, it now appears an insignificant village. NEW RADNOR, though nominally the capital of the s.h.i.+re, is little better; yet a few vestiges of an encompa.s.sing wall and a castle give it more unequivocal marks of former importance than the parent town. Its decline is dated from the rebellion of Owen Glendower, who destroyed the castle and ravaged all the surrounding district. In a rocky glen, in the vicinity of this town, is a fine cascade, though of inconsiderable volume, called WATER BREAKS ITS NECK.

Crossing Radnor forest, an extensive tract of sheep down and coppice, about twelve miles from New Radnor, and seven from Bualt, is LLANDRINDOD WELLS. This place, consisting only of one house of public entertainment and a few cottages, appears to be justly distinguished for the efficacy of its springs, which are chalybeate, sulphureous, and cathartic. But though the medicinal virtues of these waters be undoubted, and considered even more potent than those of Harrowgate; yet the place, being dreary, remote, and void of elegant accommodation, is only visited by a very few real invalids: none of that gay tribe is here to be met with which forms the princ.i.p.al company at watering-places in general.

Having thus executed my design of a general description of South-Wales and Monmouths.h.i.+re, I shall return to the narrative of my tour.