Part 15

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 illustrious 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 recumbent effigy of an armed knight, his legs across, {308} and his feet resting on a greyhound. Of this the sexton'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 passed and repassed twice through the adverse army, killing with a pole-ax no less than 140 men; which, his illustrious 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 Monmouthshire written in 1602 represents it as "a fine town, wealthy and thriving, and the very best in the shire." 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 fashions 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. Coxe 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 principal 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 pass 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 massive 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 massive 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 massive 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 passed 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 principal entrance to the abbey. Among these the natives point out a low subterraneous passage, 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 passed 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 Gloucestershire, 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 God. 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 sanctity, 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 institution 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 God." The monk of Lanthony comically relates, that "Queen Maud, not sufficiently acquainted with the sanctity 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 coarse shirt 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 assumed 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 scum 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 Monmouthshire 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 Monmouthshire 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.

CHAP. XXI.

RE-ENTRANCE OF SOUTH WALES--CRICKHOWELL--TRETOWER--BRECON CASTLE AND PRIORY--ROAD TO LLANDOVERY--TRECASTLE--PASS 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 pass 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 circumference; which, as the natives assure 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 bipartite 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, encumbered by a number of mean hovels even in its principal 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 asserting the rights of his ancestry and friends, but without success. Passing 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 ingratitude 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 Sussex, 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 anticipated.

But the most fascinating attraction of the town is its two delightful walks: the one traced on the margin of the noble Usk; the other, called the priory walk, a luxuriant grove impendent over the brawling Hondy, once assigned 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.