Radnorshire Bardic Poems 48

This is a translation of another bardic poem  - an awdl rather than a cywydd - addressed to Dafydd ap Maredudd Fychan of Garddfaelog, Llanbister thanking him for the gift of a stallion. This time by Lewis Glyn Cothi.  Usual health warnings - translated years ago without the benefit of GPC and, no, I'm not at all up to speed with some of the irregular verb endings.

No 175, Thanks for a stallion Day and night, you are the Meirchion of the vale of Ithon, A rib of Maelienydd; I cannot leave home for a single day, Without asking after Dafydd. To you Dafydd, vine of the land of Cynan, blessings, Son of Maredudd Fychan; Grant to all from the three quarters, As a justice, the custom of Elystan. To the world you are Elystan, Monarch of Philip Dorddu; May you live as long as a rock crystal, And then an age with Jesus. Mead fed prince, Jesus allows you Garth Gynfyn, Gardd Faelog; The magistrate of Hywel ap Madog, To your cheek, my blessings for an age. There is an age, grown son, to give food and wine, From the high line of Meurig Llwyd; The land insists on honouring Your presence, you are brave. You are not moody, Or rough, by the hand of Curig, Nor fierce, nor angry, seed of Cadwgan. Nor feebly ignored, Nor mean to your lands, Nor a miser Dafydd, the face of talent. To me you are twice as good As any, near or far, And with gifts even better, the race of Cadwallon. Where you dwell, your word Noble Dafydd, is equal To that of Meurig in the land of Meirion. You gave silk a hundred nights, You gave unstintingly in the day, Night and morning and every hour of the afternoon. You gave me a three year old stallion, Light and sure footed, Your office is to give a steed to your simple bard. His nature is to take hold Of the bit in his nostril, A passionate sort, one coloured, perfect, Listening for the clarion Or the tune of the gun stone, At a thump jumping about, as far as Caereinion, Baiting the sleeve Of the bear despite his dung, Bruising his bearess, throwing some. Like a mountain hart, This serpent is like a moorland stag Across a flat field,   With the coat of a roebuck, Like a boar, like a fat apple, Like a clean, strong, wild beast, a well-fed lion. On Sunday, Dafydd I'll come with a cywydd To give daily thanks for my horse-haired stag. I'm your bard on your stallion Come to greet you, Your swan will win us respect from the host By my cross, I'm your man, Generous one of Gardd Faelog, Who serves a knight like Meirchion.

Radnorshire Bardic Poems 47

Below is my poor translation of a 15C poem by the bard Llawdden, a man who once lived, by his own account, in the parish of Cefnllys. It is a request for a sallet - a type of helmet - made on behalf of Dafydd ap Maredudd Fychan of Garddfaelog, Llanbister (Caerfaelog on the OS map) to an uncle named Madog.

According to the modern day edition of Llawdden's work this Madog was one Madog ap Hywel ap Madog Fychan who according to Bartrum's genealogies was Dafydd's maternal grandfather rather than his uncle, see here.  It can also be seen that this Madog was not related by blood to Cadwgan ap Hywel Fychan of Elfael Uwch Mynydd, as line 13 suggests.

I would like to put forward another name, one Madog ap Maredudd ap Rhys whose pedigree can be found here (Elystan Glodrydd 10).  Like Dafydd, Madog was descended in the maternal line from Cadwgan.  His father Maredudd ap Rhys was also a first cousin of Glyndwr's lieutenant Rhys Gethin and therefore Madog was a second cousin of Sir Richard Gethin, a famous soldier in the 15C French Wars who, somehow or other, is ignored by the Dictionary of Welsh Biography.  While Dafydd was Cadwgan's great grandson, Madog was Cadwgan's grandson and a cousin to Dafydd of Garddfaelog's mother - what the old Radnorshire folk would have called a Welsh uncle.

The editor of Gwaith Llawdden makes a good case for the Llanfair of line 6 being Llanfair Trellwydion, a lost chapelry within Llanbister parish and fairly close to Garddfaelog.  If Madog ap Maredudd was the donor of the helmet then this Llanfair could instead be Builth, the descent group Elystan Glodrydd(10) holding land there and also in Diserth parish. This is just a suggestion but it would also solve the problem, identified by the editor, of the request poem starting, unusually, with a reference to the recipient of the gift rather than the donor.

Mae seiri yn mesuraw Yonder the craftsmen Measure out a mile of gold; From fair houses it was worked Heavenly colour on the river bank; A place of good men beside the surge The Land of Llanfair, behold a fair vale! One of the goodmen of our island Is the image of Maredudd ap Rhys Who made the governance of the two lands An advancement for Madog. He's like a hawk or a falcon He's a bird over Elfael. Two kinsmen from the same Cadwgan, Have made an exchange For me there's  but a journey, Rare purpose, between uncle and nephew. This one has it, for me with his gift A sallet like a swan's breast. From the town a covering for the pate, All blue like a young salmon's back. A louver like the seven planets, A lamp, lighting for my head. A casket to be worn against a blow, A bell that comes as far as the cheeks. Round like a conqueror's crown, A white bolster about a man's ears I come with my poem and accompanying harp Beaten steel through the crystal, A sallet like St Silin's relic, Shops of Sheen tassells, Silver bordered burnished bar, With a pennant like a fine banner. The colour of ice on the sides, Polished gold beside the jewel, A moon fitted for the skull Smoother than plate metal. Sun or fire, it is thin, A turned bowl set with a hat. Its visor works as my shield Like a box or a grey blue beast. A place for the hair within a white cauldron, A place to peep from an enemy's hand; A visit seen, a man brought it, Through two Ls sight penetrates. A good gentle head like Dewi Mynyw, Meugan's head, of silver. Plate for the head against an ash spear, A head-dress like an anchorite's white cap. I'm a poet who dreams, And a dream comes swiftly, A ship for me or a white skillet, Or Owain ab Urien's cauldron. A cock's comb like a stone above the gro, Or a scallop shell from Santiago. It's bottom like a Maelor goblet, With jaws like a great gun. If it's to be had above my dark blue eyes A steel head like St George's bonnet, A hat of steel as broad as a plate, A helmet in Madog's possession: I name this for Dafydd A helmet will be worn in Garddfaelog!

A Radnorshire Scandal

After years of mainly Independent candidates, often elected unopposed, party politics is back with a bang in this Thursday's election of the Radnorshire members to Powys County Council.  Of course this is nothing new, since in the late Victorian period even the humblest parish contest would have witnessed Tories and Liberals battling for supremacy.

It was perhaps this bitter party rivalry which saw Abel Thomas QC, the Liberal MP for East Carmarthenshire, representing a Radnorshire farmer in a paternity dispute before the Merthyr Tydfil magistrates in 1895.  After all the farmer, let's call him Mr D, was a Liberal member of Radnorshire County Council, a Justice of the Peace and Chairman of the local Board of Guardians. No doubt party honour needed to be upheld.

Mary Ann, a farmer's daughter in her early 20s, had accused the councillor of fathering her illegitimate daughter.  The case had already been thrown out in Builth but perhaps the Merthyr court would take the opportunity of avoiding any financial charge to their ratepayers, the girl and her child now living in that town.

The councillor, a married man aged 35, was accused of familiarities - witnesses confirmed that he had once lifted the girl on to the cratch and kissed her during a sheep washing - though some declared that Mary Ann had removed his pipe to facilitate this intrusion.  On another occasion there had been a similar incident witnessed in Minton's shop. There were no witnesses, it was true, to the "familiarities" which had left her "enceinte."  Mr D insisted that he was blameless and that his waggoner was the father of the child.  Yes, he admitted, another paternity suit had recently been brought against him, it was opportunistic, and in the 25 years he had lived on his father's farm only two servants had left "in the family way."  After six hours of such testimony it was the lack of any corroborative evidence which led the court to dismiss the case.

So was this a Victorian melodrama featuring a poor unfortunate and a rouge?  Well perhaps, although within two years Mary Ann had indeed married Mr D's waggoner.  They would go on to have 12 children together..

Incidentally Abel Thomas QC was involved in another case of shenanigans involving a prominent Radnorshire politician, see here.

New Book

It seems a new book of local interest from Logaston Press will be on sale soon, 230 pages, £10

Forgotten Radnorian - Rev. John Bufton

The novel Gwen Penri - A Welsh Idyll published in London in 1899 - a tale of a Denbighshire banker's daughter attending college in Aberystwyth -  can't have been a great success, indeed a  reviewer in the Welsh newspaper Y Goluead complained that the author, who had migrated to Australia due to ill-health, must have forgotten everything he ever knew about Wales - if he knew anything in the first place!

So who was this Congregationalist minister and novelist with the Radnorian name of John Bufton?  According to this site Bufton was born in Llandrindod and died in Hobart, Tasmania in 1911, but it is the pseudonym Brynithon which gives a clue to his actual identity.  John was the son of James Bufton and his wife Mary Bowen, who at the time of the novelist's birth were farming Bryneithin in Llanbister parish.

Today Bufton is remembered for his 1905 opus Tasmanians in the Transvaal War, good copies of which sell for over £500.  A book of  interest, no doubt,  to Tasmanians and those interested in Australian participation in the Second Boer War, the background to the film Breaker Morant.

Some Radnorians from the 1911 Census, No 1

"All is safely gathered in, except the rakings at Ty Gwyn"

Well that, according to the old people, was what the less respectful farm boys would sing at harvest festivals in Howey's Providence Baptist chapel.  Nowadays Ty Gwyn, which is found on the backroad between Howey and Llandrindod, takes paying guests and has a website, but in 1841 it was home to a young lad called John Lewis, the five year old son of an elderly farmer and his much younger wife.

I first noticed John, a carpenter, in the 1901 census when he was lodging at 1 Springfield Cottage ... the return said he had been born at Ty Gwyn and that, unusually, he spoke both Welsh and English. He was a lodger at the home of his nephew James Lloyd, as he had been in 1891. Indeed John Lewis seems to have been something of a sitting lodger since he was still there in 1911, although by then his nephew's family had moved on. In all three census returns John's bilingualism was recorded.

The 1841 Census showed that both his parents were locals - from Llandrindod and Diserth - and in subsequent returns Builth, in 1861, was the furthest he'd strayed away from Radnorshire. In 1851 he'd been a farm servant at Brynhir, the neighbouring farm to Ty Gwyn, his father having died the previous year. In 1871 and 1881 he was living at Cwmhowey with his step-father, he never seems to have married.

I suppose John Lewis could have learnt Welsh when his mother and step-father opened a grocer's shop in Llanfihangel Fechan in Breconshire - they were there in 1861  - but I like to think that it was the language he spoke to his father (born in Llandrindod c1776) as a child at Ty Gwyn and that he was just too old-fashioned and guileless to pretend he couldn't. Llandrindod's very own Ned Maddrell* perhaps?

* Of course in John Lewis's day Llandrindod would have had other locally born people who could speak Welsh but they would have been returnees from the industrial south or the children of incomers.

Radnorshire and the Titanic

Two subjects which seem to fascinate amateur historians are Jack the Ripper and the sinking of the Titanic. There are websites and forums examining those events in mind-boggling detail. Now, with the centenary of the sinking of the White Star flagship, the mainstream media has also gone overboard with numerous television programmes and books about the ill-fated liner.

The Western Mail's Lefi Gruffudd quite rightly complains about Welsh television's rather pathetic desire to join in this festival of remembrance while ignoring historical events of far more significance to Wales. Will Senghenydd, he asks, be remembered in 2013? Well perhaps not, but then Kate Winslet hasn't starred in a film about the Glamorgan mining tragedy.

If some of the Welsh connections to the Titanic story are ridiculous - according to the Western Mail the first class passengers ate off silverware made in Wales - at least Radnorshire can claim a more substantial link with the aftermath.

I wonder if the legal representative of the Dockers' Union and stout defender of the working class Clement Edwards took a particular pleasure in cross-examining Sir Cosmo Duff-Gordon and his wife Lady Lucile at the Board of Trade Inquiry into the sinking of the doomed vessel. Through their links to the Lewis family - their father was a first cousin of George Cornewall Lewis - Cosmo's brother Henry had recently taken possession of Harpton Court near New Radnor, a locality that Edwards, the son of a Knighton draper,* knew well.

According to the popular press the lifeboat in which Duff-Gordon and his wife had escaped the Titanic was know as "the money boat." It was suggested that the crew had been bribed to get away from the sinking vessel rather than pick up survivors, even though there were just 12 occupants in the 40 seater craft. Despite some obvious inconsistencies in their evidence highlighted by Edwards, the Board of Inquiry found the couple quite blameless. They would suffer from the gossip of less generous sections of the public for the rest of their days.

Within a year Clement Edwards - he was the MP for the East Glamorgan constituency which contained the village of Senghenydd - would be representing the bereaved families at the inquest into the Universal pit explosion.

* Clem Edwards' Llangynllo born mother Sarah bore the fine old Radnorshire surname of Tudge - it dates back in the county until at least the 1690s. At the time of the 1911 Census and by then a widow, Mrs Edwards was keeping a boarding house, Penithon, in Llandrindod.

Radnorshire Chapel

Radnorshire Divided?

Is there any truth to the theory mentioned in a footnote to the article by A J Ellis entitled On the delimitation of the English and Welsh languages in the October 1882 issue of Y Cymmrodor? Could Radnorshire have been divided Ulster-style between the native Welsh and the descendants of a Cromwellian plantation?

Howel Lloyd, who mentions the idea (see above) was a Roman Catholic convert and a local historian with mainly Montgomeryshire interests. He was sufficiently well-regarded to make it into the pages of the Dictionary of Welsh Biography, his entry is here.

Now some of the more popular local surnames of English origin turn up in the county before the Civil War: Addis, Bufton, Harding, Mantle, Russell, Shipman, Wilcocks, Wilde. To this we have to add names that drifted into Radnorshire from the 16C plantations in Montgomeryshire (Cleaton, Hamer, Ingram, Jarman, Kinsey etc.), names that originated in the ethnic mix in and around Presteigne, and gentry names, essentially Norman, from Breconshire and Herefordshire (Baskerville, Gunter, Havard, Whitney)

This leaves us with a number of surnames which do indeed first appear in parishes in North Radnorshire during the second half of the Sixteenth Century - the Pitchfords, Bywaters, Palfreys, Wildings, Weales etc. Is there any evidence that these new families stood aloof from their Welsh neighbours? A way of spotting any such social divide would be to look at marriage records. If such a divide existed you wouldn't expect the newcomers to inter-marry in any great number with the Joneses, Davieses, Evanses and the rest. Such an aversion should be easily spotted in the lists of marriage bonds and copies of wills available on-line from the National Library of Wales.

A quick look at the marriage bonds shows that folk with English surnames were three to four times more likely to marry partners with Welsh surnames than partners with names of English origin. I suppose you'd have to do a lot more research to be certain but it doesn't look very likely that a Cromwellian plantation had any lasting identity in Radnorshire.

Lists

That great organ of Welsh identity, the Western Mail (west of where?) is indulging in a series of articles to unearth the most historically important place in Wales. A snore of academics will argue the case for various locations, here's the list:

The soccer grounds of Wales - Professor Huw Bowen
Snowdon - Professor Chris Williams
Lodge Hill, near Caerleon - Dr Ray Howell

Llyn Fawr, in the Cynon Valley, and Llyn Cerrig Bach, on Anglesey - Professor Raimund Karl
Strata Florida - Professor David Austin
Aberlleiniog Castle, Anglesey - Dr David Wyatt
Ysbyty Ifan and the tomb of Rhys ap Maredudd, Conwy - Dr Madeleine Gray
Gower churches - Dr Helen Nicholson
Llangwm Uchaf (Mon) - Dr Alun Withey
Llantrithyd House - Dr Lloyd Bowen
Middleton Hall (National Botanic Gardens) - Dr Lowri Rees
Pumlumon/The Elenydd - Dr Martin Wright
The lower Swansea Valley - Professor Huw Bowen
Merthyr - Professor Chris Evans
Washburn Cemetery, Scranton, Pennsylvania - Dr Bill Jones
Talerddig cutting, Powys - Professor Iwan Morus
Cardiff Castle - Dr Andrew Richardson
Penallta Colliery, near Ystrad Mynach - Dr Ben Curtis
The Street - Dr Paul O'Leary
Tredegar - Dr Steve Thompson
Mametz Wood - Dr Robin Barlow
Barry Island - Dr Andy Croll

No Radnorshire entries of course, unless part of the county is included within The Elenydd - THE Elenydd? Do we say The Meirionydd?

Now I realise that this exercise is not really about finding the most important historical site in Wales. Rather it's an opportunity for our current crop of historians to address their particular interests before a wider audience than the "cloister of the learned journal." If it were a serious list then surely Pilleth - where Glyndwr, with the help of the men of Maelienydd, defeated a sizable English army in the field - would be high up the table.

Any more suggestions for Radnorshire sites that might qualify in a list of sites of real importance in our nation's story?

Mugs

Not much to say about the above except for the obvious, that Radnorshire isn't in England and that the "fine old stronghold" was built just 90 years or so before the Land Army girls moved in.

On the other hand you come across comments like this from a book called Language in Geographic Context:

"the border counties of Brecon and Radnor, which have long been anglicised since Tudor times"

Now I wouldn't mind if this was penned by purveyors of crockery but it's in a tome authored by two of the leading authorities on the geographical history of the Welsh language and it's nonsense.

I could go on ........ but I've given up blogging so I won't

Forthcoming Books

I see Lolfa will be publishing a novel of Radnorshire interest this summer based on the life of Gwenllian the daughter of Owain Glyndwr. Gwenllian and her family lived at Cenarth in the parish of St Harmon.

The selling pitch on the Lolfa site mentions that the book may be of interest to those who speculate about Owain's burial site. This is usually thought to be in Herefordshire near the home of his daughter Alys Scudamore. When you think about it St Harmon would have been a better bet, especially if, as some believe, Gwenllian's husband Philip ap Rhys was such a diehard that he continued to fight on, even after the surrender of Owain's son Maredudd in 1421.

Bill Sikes the Radnorian

I've blogged about Bill Sheen before, see here.

I believe he was a model for the Dickens character Bill Sikes, although now we learn that the great novelist used the names of everyday folk from his teenage neighbourhood for some of his best-known creations. William Sykes, it seems, was a harmless tallow seller.

While not doubting that Dickens may have found the surname in that way, the character of Sikes is surely based in part on the Radnorian Sheen, once pursued from London to the Severn Arms in Penybont after slicing off the head of his jade Letitia's infant son and being subsequently found not-guilty of the murder on a legal nicety - twice!

Now Bill Sheen was not some anonymous Radnorian abroad in the smoke, he was famous, a 19C celebrity if you like. He was Sheen the infanticide, Sheen the child murderer, whose every scandalous court appearance for twenty years was reported assiduously in the public press - not least by the Thunderer itself.

Bill and his notorious mother Ann Sheen* ran brothels in Spitalfields, in particular in Wentworth Street. A street that was also home to another well known criminal, the receiver of stolen goods, Ikey Solomon - who many agree was the model for the Dickens character Fagin.

Sheen's brothels were infamous dens of child criminality where youngsters were lodged and sent out to pick pockets and plunder. Take a look at this evidence to a Select Committee of the House of Commons from 1837, just a year before the publication of Oliver Twist, evidence which was quoted verbatim in the Times.

And what of Sikes' moll, the unfortunate Nancy? Well in 1847 Bill Sheen was sentenced to two years with hard labour for violently assaulting and slashing his common law wife of eighteen years, one Mary Ann Sullivan. The Times reported that Sullivan had been "the subject of constant ill-usage" during her nearly two decades with Sheen and had frequently needed hospital attention after the brutal beatings she received. Was this violent relationship known to Dickens perhaps? He could certainly have read of the court case in 1836 where Bill had threatened to "rip up the bowels" of a lass called Mary Moore.

Radnorians may be interested in an obsequious letter Sheen wrote to the Lambeth Street magistrates from the New Prison in Clerkenwell, following the rescue of eight young mites from his clutches. Sheen boasted of "the respectability of my relations in Radnorshire." There was: a Mr___, a respectable farmer, and Mr___, shopkeeper and farmer at ___, and "aunt Sheen who lives on her own freehold estate at a place called ___, where my grandfather lived and kept his hounds for 70 years." Unfortunately the Times omits the actual names, no doubt to spare his relatives' blushes. If only the magistrates would release him, Sheen promised, he would leave London and go to Radnorshire and "never more trouble you." Thankfully for Radnorshire the magistrates ignored his plea and sent him down for 18 months.

* Like her neighbour Ikey Solomon Ann Sheen was a well-known fence - she owned a chandler's shop in Spitalfields. In 1840 at the age of 59 she was sentenced to be transported for 14 years. In the event Mrs Sheen pined away in the Millbank Penitentiary, dying in 1842. Ann left her not inconsiderable fortune in Bank Stock and properties to her favourite son, Bill.

Goodbye to all that

This blog is six years old which seems a long enough run.

When I started back in 2006 there wasn't a lot of Radnorshire history on the web and some of it was nonsense.

Now we have this and this and this. More than enough to be getting on with.

By all means check back occasionally, I'll probably post something but not on a regular basis.

Bedo Brwynllys

Note: This is an old post but since the new super improved blogger deletes posts without warning  I've had to republish. Lost six comments though. 

For me Welsh lessons in Llandrindod Grammar School lasted for the five minutes or so it took the headmaster E. V. Howells to ask the newly arrived first formers if they wanted to take French or Welsh. I chose French because that was what my pals from the National School were signing up for. My father, who like many working-class Radnorians wished he could speak the language, was disappointed and as it turned out I hated French. I would probably have hated Welsh as well, if I'd taken that. Years later when I'd picked up a bit of the lingo I translated a load of bardic poems with the help of Geiriadur Mawr. I suppose what I'm trying to say is that the three translations below probably include some howlers. Perhaps I should take another look at them with the help of the online Geiriadur Prifysgol Cymru but I really can't spare the time. What can't be translated, of course, is the intricate metre and craftmanship of these poems.

They are examples of the type of poem composed by young bards advising brides not to wed and married women to take a lover. I'd guess they were just a bit of fun and performed for the amusement of the assembly in the presence of the potential or actual spouse. I'd doubt if they expressed any real romantic attachment, these bards were in the business of making a living, not parading their emotions. The first certainly sounds as if it was being declaimed to a bride and groom at a wedding feast, the second laments the cutting down of a wood by a jealous husband and the third is an example of dyfalu, the piling up of metaphor, in this case to describe an eyebrow.

The poems are by the 15C bard Bedo Brwynllys who the experts say was from Bronllys near Talgarth. Why couldn't he be from the township of Brwynllys in Llanbister parish?

Y fun ddifai, fwyn ddwyfes The blameless girl, a gentle goddess White-necked, bright as the sun on the gable, Jet brows upon two rosy cheeks, With a face like fresh snow; For beauty and grace, There’s no seabird as fair as you! God placed a roof of burnished gold Upon your hair, newly roofed gold. Is it any wonder then That love has me in its thrall, Has me languishing with sickness, Fair one, my world’s without comfort! Fair one, the girl who makes me ill, Gentle fair one, should make me well! Come fair one with your hair of gold, To the greenwood, you with the golden hair, For fear of misfortune, some sheltered bank, Fair one, your husband has an evil nature. Your kindred, fair brilliant girl, Would love to sell you, fair one: Come, to me, I’d not turn you away, Look he’s an old man! Don’t strike a bargain with an old miser And upon false promises; When he has you, the arch-miser will break his oath, You’ll never be free of him. You’ll never enjoy happiness again Not one day in ten, Only scolding each day, and anger, That will leave you pining. Graceful fair one, gossamer of light, You have a beautiful face, Love a young man who loves you, Well respected in his country, Place your faith in hands that respect you, Avoid the hands of anger; Fair one, for your life, don’t of your own free will Seek foolish servitude, not even if you’re forced. Y ddyn fwyn addwyn feinawl The slim, gentle, kindly girl, My plighted love, my rightful goddess; Such terrible work, alas for lovers, May your husband be speared, an easy task? There’s no single spot in creation Where he does not have his spies! Yet my desire is greater And he fears me, more and more. There was, for those who would make love, A pleasant grove, just ready for May; He’s killed that pretty thicket - A slaughter like that of wretched Troy! Two fellows, yesterday, with axes Came to the wood, two stupid men, And death came to the innocent crowd. It was Eiddig and his servant Who left the fair vale naked, Those enemies of the ash lined brook. This was their cruel purpose, (Let them be chased by devils! A thief whom all despise) To murder with evil hands. A bad life for such filthy wretches, Let Eiddig’s house suffer, Let a swollen rumped hangman’s horse Sit under his evil servant. He grew bitter about a fair spoken girl, He grew eager for fire, (Oh see the place where love once was whispered) The desolate grove is now a clearing Full of stumps and pathways, Where once there was wood, Tree stumps and tangled roots, Woodchips from some yokel’s axe. Little wonder that on yonder slope Eiddig is left bereft of birch trees, He keeps no wooded parkland, He tolerates no branches. This very day the man has Felled a woodland to the ground. He’d cut down the Lord’s prayer itself With his great sword in his hand! That very hand cut down the wood. A shelter for every gentle person Brought there by desire. There’s an evil about his house, A spear for his belly, the arch villain, Oh let summer give sprout to it. A disaster‘s overtaken the world, There’ll be no small saplings, Isn’t it wretched, a stockpile of logs Which will never bear their need of leaves? Where a poet was once beneath the hazels, In a shady place with a message of love, A bare expanse has now been created. Yet there’s a means, let me recite, To take revenge when summer comes: I’ll love the maid more than ever The churl will pay for burning the wood! Gwelais mewn ffair ddisgleirddyn I saw a radiant girl at a fair, She had the look of a bright mirror. I saw fine brows like a squirrel’s, How wretched there’s no better word! I saw in the wink of her eye, A sweet smile, shining and frownless. I saw again a slim-browed maid, A queen playing tricks on her lord, I responded to Olwen’s gesture, I’m mocked, caught by a fair girl. A girl’s lashes made me weep, Alas I was ever born! Not a red brow, a quiet spoken girl, Not blond nor yellow, by Mary: A slim, black brow mocked me, And left me lost for words. It’s colour was drawn with berry juice, A thin line like a rainbow; A black circle on chalk, An elegant wheel rim; Appointed, from fine velvet, To a high place, a tiny brow. Black placed in a prominent place On the sweet-wise queen, a pure black straw, A shallow boss, a compass line on chalk, The fresh hue of the blackbird, A girl’s brow (let her come to the greenwood) Of smithy soot, exceedingly thin, A handle of gleaming black marble Beneath a radiant osier chaplet. God was good, he was blameless, Placing a seal on a girl’s temple. A rod’s trace on her forehead, Part of the head’s hair, A black sign as the forehead’s seam. A fresh weld of crystal. Prettily the party placed on a maid, A pleated and divided mane; A slim guard over a blush, Gossamer on the vine’s face, And the colour, like chalk on a sheet Spattered with blackberry. A round of silk, a chosen dress, The soldered brow, a discreet mark. The tip of a wing in the snow, A barely visible string of jet beads. Slim-browed queen, a glove seam, A silk loom, fair silver brow, An untwisted thread Over the rose petals. Your brow is faultless, powder of Liere, Poppy seed blackening paper; Not a mark on a sheet, No such thing, that’s too thick. A copy of a chapel print, An exquisite stitch around a ball, An ink-crest, God’s cross, The merest wand of a round letter. I received a memorable wink, A subtle smile from a whinberry brow. My surmise on receiving the pretty nod Was that the girl would fall into my arms. She loved to play tricks on her lord, She’d not cheapen her body with a fool. Despite her winking she seeks no tryst, She’ll not come, she never said she would!

2012 - Bring it on

Radnorian wishes all readers, and especially those who take the trouble to leave comments, a happy and prosperous - ok fat chance of that - New Year.

They have a dream ......

It's December 31st 1965 and the Labour government has just received a report it commissioned on the building of a new town in Mid-Wales. The report recommends a town of some 60000 stretching 17 miles between Llani and Newtown. It looks like the dream of various businessmen, council officials and local politicians is coming to fruition. Then in March a bomb explodes at the nearby Clywedog reservoir, followed in July by Gwynfor Evans' victory at Carmarthen .... the plan to extend the West Midlands into Mid Wales is quietly dropped.

Never mind there are other cards to play and in the meantime we can all enjoy Brumbeat legends the Applejacks ... the Honeycombs might have had a girl drummer but the Solihull group had Megan Davies on bass.

Some More Radnorshire Surnames

Addis - A surname that turns up in Radnorshire as early as 1634 and which was found mainly in Bugeildy parish well into the 19C. The name is said to derive from a pet form of Adam and occurs most commonly in Herefordshire, Shropshire and Gloucestershire, see here. Ade also occurs as a Welsh patronym - the Werdutvil daughter of Ade of Bleddfa in the tax assessment of 1293 and a local princeling Meurig ab Ade, fined 100 marks for rebelling against King John in 1211, are examples. It could be that the Radnorshire families owe their origin to this forename and their name is as patronymical as their Price and Cadwallader neighbours.

Minton - The surname can be found in the 1670 Hearth Tax for Colva and was there as early as the 1650s. Researchers might miss it though since it is omitted from the index to the tax published in the 1991 Radnorshire Society Transactions. The family may have originally come from Minton in Shropshire, although by 1688 John Minton was happy enough to see his daughter christened Gwenllian in Colva parish church. There were still Mintons in Glascwm, Rhiwlen and Bryngwyn in the 19C although others had migrated to the coalfield. I'm not claiming any Radnorian connection with this "date from hell" mind.

Wozencroft - Can there be a local surname with more spelling variations: Woozencroft, Worsencroft, Wosencraft, Wostencraft, Wostencroft, Wozencraft are just some from the 1841 Census. It's a name that was found in the Radnorshire parishes of Bugeildy, Llanbister and Llanyre in the 1670 Hearth Tax, having come into the county from Montgomeryshire where it crops up in Llanidloes as early as 1578. Said to originate from the Lancashire placename Wolstencroft it no doubt entered Wales as part of the Elizabethan plantation in Western Montgomeryshire. The 19C censuses show that Wozencroft and Wozencraft are overwhelmingly names associated with Mid Wales, see here for example. Who knows, perhaps the family of the author of the book on which this cult movie is based - it's available to view on youtube - came from Radnorshire.

We will come if we are fetched......

Although Powlett Milbank, the Tory elected to serve Radnorshire in Parliament in 1895, decided not to contest the 1900 election because of ill-health, he continued as Lord Lieutenant of the county until his death in January 1918. It was in this capacity that in 1915 he expressed his keen disappointment that the men of Radnorshire were reluctant to join the army and go to war. When Sir Powlett challenged them they would respond "we will come if we are fetched."

The Military Service Act of 1916 ensured that reluctant Radnorians were indeed fetched to the colours, although in the case of the Davenport brothers, Len and Ernie, this was unnecessary, both having joined the South Wales Borderers before the start of the War. Indeed 1914 found Len in China participating in the Japanese led attack on the German controlled port of Tsintao. Later he would serve in Gallipoli before being killed in France in July 1917. His brother Ernie was gassed during the retreat from Mons and discharged as being medically unfit. Ernie died in Mardy hospital a few days before his older brother. Eighteen year old Arthur, the last surviving Davenport boy, was killed in France on 28th October 1918.

All three names are recorded on the War Memorial in Llandrindod - the loss of three brothers was not at all unusual, indeed the same memorial lists the names of three Hope brothers who also died in the First World War. The Davenport names can also be seen, although spelt incorrectly, on the memorial in St David's church Howey.

Years ago I read some letters belonging to the Davenports - a little notebook Len had used when hospitalised in England, containing snatches of conversation written down, perhaps because he was deaf. There was a bitterness about the war in various hands as well as comments that suggested that the unangelic nurse is not just a modern-day phenomenon. A fatalistic letter to his sister sent a couple of days before he was killed expressed Len's gratitude that at least his discharged brother Ernie would survive the war. As it happened Ernie had died just a few days before the letter was posted. There was a bombastic letter to his brother in France from a youthful Arthur describing a cinema newsreel he had seen and a letter to their sister Gwladys from the matron of the hospital where Ernie had been treated. "Your brother suffered a great deal before he died" it explained with a good deal more honesty than compassion.

How wise those Radnorians were who informed the bellicose Sir Powlett that they would only come if they were fetched.

D-Day Dodgers

We're the D-Day Dodgers out in Italy
Always on the vino, always on the spree

My father, with the 'tache, doing a bit of D-Day dodging out in Italy, although I suppose it might be North Africa. He would have been 100 today!

Putting on Weight

The Radnorshire Society Transactions - and many thanks to the National Library for making so much historical information available on-line - has a couple of references to a murder committed in 1554 by a William Treylo of Ackhill. William had killed one John Hebbe in Presteigne by striking him a single blow to the head with a hedge bill.

Another Treylo - a name probably derived from a local placename Maes Treylow near Discoed and responsible for modern day surnames such as Traylor, Trelloe and Trillo - who fell foul of the law was John Treylo, also of Ackhill, who was seemingly pressed to death in 1578, the punishment reserved for those who refused to plead and sometimes chosen in order to avoid a guilty verdict and the subsequent confiscation of family property by the crown. Pressing continued until 1741 while burning at the stake, a punishment by then reserved for women, wasn't abolished until 1790.

Welsh in New Radnor

How to reconcile these two quotes:

"New Radnor was planted as a Saxon colony by Harold, after his victory here over the Britons, two years before his death at Hastings. This people have never since had any sympathies with the Welsh in language, nor many in habits .." - Sir William Cockburn of Downton House, evidence to the Commission of Inquiry into the State of Education in Wales, February 1847.

"... all English here, New Radnor is not four miles from hence, where there is nothing but Welsh." - Lewis Morris in a letter written from the King's Head, Kington, February 1742.

Of course Cockburn is correct in believing that there was Saxon settlement in the area, local placenames provide abundant evidence of that, but he is certainly wrong in believing that this was a district where the Welsh language never flourished. The local gentry were patrons of the bards until the 17C and a quick glance at the Lay Subsidy of 1543 should settle the matter. Nor was there any great divide between those with English style surnames and those with patronyms. Wills from the period and names like Morgan Hoddell or Dyddgu Stones - an interesting local surname probably derived from the Four Stones at Walton - are evidence of that. And what of Anne Sasnes - Anne the Englishwoman - who witnessed a New Radnor will in 1548, a strange name in a town which had no sympathy for the Welsh language.

Perhaps Cockburn thought he was doing his neighbours a favour by disassociating them from any taint Welshness. After all this was a time when the Eton boys who were the leading Liberal political bigwigs in the area believed the Welsh to be a race of "miserable Celtic savages."

So what then of Lewis Morris? Some Welsh academics have doubted his evidence but it seems to me that it was consistent with what we know. In 1827, while describing the Welsh dialect of Llandrindod, the correspondent of the monthly magazine Y Gwyliedydd informs us that the language had retreated twenty miles in living memory - more than enough to encompass New Radnor some 80 years before. James Beaumont of the Gore, the Methodist exhorter who died in 1750, was said to be happier preaching in Welsh than in English. In 1744 a traveller to Llandrindod encountered an old man in Bleddfa who could speak no English, and between there and Llanfihangel Rhydithon heard little Engish except for an innkeeper who spoke the language "indifferent good". If the language survived in these two parishes, which from surname evidence had seen a good deal of in-migration, why not in New Radnor which had not.

Finally Sir William Cockburn might have considered the field names of Downton itself. When the railway came to New Radnor around 1860, local fields such as Pwll Mawn, Clos y Garreg, Plocau Melyn and Maes Downton were mentioned - evidence of a Welsh speaking past and a fairly recent one at that.

Musical Interlude

With a German hegemony likely in the EU will this be the future of popular music? These girls are getting bigger and blonder and those serial-killer smiles even more unsettling. I like them and at least we'd get good beer and good sausage. Of course we might get this, in which case scrub the beer and sausage.

The Stately Homes of Radnor

Did you miss this characteristically snobbish headline in the Daily Mail from a couple of weeks ago? It suggests that Downton Abbey - a popular television entertainment - is based on an "aristocratic pile" in Radnorshire. I doubt if the series would have had much success if creator Julian Fellowes, his grandmother was from Llandegley, had called the blockbuster Penybont Hall. Perhaps in coming up with the name Fellowes had in mind two other Radnorian houses - Downton House and Abbeycwmhir Hall?

Book of the Week

Real Powys, that's a good one, for a county dreamt up in the 1970s by bureaucrats with a passing but imprecise knowledge of medieval history. Anyway it's part of a series from Seren Books that includes Real Llanelli, Real Merthyr and the like, so we can excuse the faintly oxymoronic title.

The paperback consists of 39 offbeat pieces based around towns and districts in the county, some 200 pages in all. As well as the expected, Richard Booth and Adelina Patti, we also get more rootsy stuff, Harry Tuffin's, or a day at Penybont races for example. Mind you I could have done without the author's exploits with a hairy 'lumberjack' in the Abergwesyn pass.

Mistakes? Well you don't have to ford the Ithon to get from Cilmeri to Llanynys but Parker certainly knows his subject. There's an I-spy game for Gogs to while away the happy hours on the A470 - 3 points if you see a car scrape it's hubcaps on the metalled kerbing going on to Builth Bridge.

Who should read this book? Certainly the author's soap-dodging, dream-weaving, down-shifting, white-flighting, Guardian-reading, gastro-pubbing incomers. Also locals who like to read other viewpoints on the familiar, Llandrindod's fresh air for instance is "Patchouli, with faint opiate top notes." Yes we've all caught a whiff of those. At £9.99 it might also make a useful Christmas present for whichever public servant was responsible for an information board recording "the legend of Prince Llewelyn."

Verdict. It's not Paul Theroux but it'll do.

Innes Ireland - The Golden Age of Motorsport

Since the blog started I've posted a lot about Innes Ireland, the Grand Prix driver who once lived at Downton House, New Radnor, so I guess I shouldn't ignore this hour-long documentary which has just appeared on youtube.

Brycheiniog

Charitable Radnorians will be pleased that the journal Brycheiniog is now available on the Welsh Journals Online site, see here.

South will meet with North

For too long all roads led east, little wonder that Wales was an end-of-the-line country with a dead-end economy. Radnorian salutes the workers who completed this section of the north-south link ahead of time and on budget. We look forward to the by-passing of Builth and a Radnorshire in the middle of Wales rather than the middle of nowhere.

Tip: If you don't like the soundtrack mute it or better still play this.

Ignorance, Drunkenness and the Clergy

No doubt peeved by the unexpected defeat of Frank Edwards in the 1895 General Election by the Tory candidate Powlett Milbank, the newspaper Cymro returned to a familiar theme of the Victorian Welsh language press, the immorality of the Radnorshire population. How the 48.7% of the electorate who had actually supported Edwards fitted into their paganistic fantasy I don't know.

Meanwhile Baner ac Amserau Cymru put the defeat down to drunkenness, ignorance and the clergy. If that sounds a little similar to the usual Unionist accusations against the priest-ridden Irish then it was a tad ironic that Milbank's campaign had been supported by Ulstermen shipped into the county to canvass on behalf of the anti-Home Rulers. Poor Radnorshire in need of fire and brimstone missionaries from both the unionist and nationalist perspective.

Daniel Carter - Who He?

I thought my copy of Meic Stephens' Oxford Companion to the Literature of Wales was pretty well-thumbed but, somehow or other, one entry of Radnorshire interest managed to escape attention for the last 25 years.

Daniel Carter, it seems, was the author of a book-length descriptive poem published in Llanidloes in 1863 entitled Rhaiadr Gwy. Now this poem, the Radnorshire Museum have a copy, may well be worth reading for its "notes historical and topographical, antiquarian and archaeological." The Oxford Companion also mentions two other works - The Legend of Devil's Bridge and The Rose of Pont Vathew - although these have so far escaped the notice of the internet.

So who was this Daniel Carter, whose "life's work" was as Master of the Foundation Grammar School at Rhayader, an institution which seems to be as obscure as Carter's connection with the town? In 1840 when he wrote Rhaiadr Gwy he was living, by his own account, at Ffynnon Fair Cottage in the town. His full name was Daniel Pepper Carter, born in Lambeth around 1808 with no apparent connection to Wales. I can first spot him in the 1851 Census when he was living in Newtown and described as a teacher of languages. His wife Elizabeth, they had recently married, was from Hay, or more likely Betws Clyro. By 1861 the couple had moved to Ashby de la Zouch and Carter had promoted himself to be a professor of languages. In 1871 he is at Hereford, an author-miscellaneous and blind. Carter died a few weeks later on 30th June 1871.

Does someone know more about the elusive Mr Carter or his Foundation Grammar School at Rhayader?

Till the people will bear it no more.

A journalistic view of the Rhayader district from 1843

I wonder how accurate a description it was? Stuffing rags or turf in a window opening doesn't sound very likely. I know there was something similar in the Blue Books, turf walls, leaking roofs, dung heaps, but I do wonder if there is a degree of culture shock behind these viewpoints. Surely the Radnorshire housewife would have demanded as much comfort as possible in her hovel, a dry roof at least. While the dung/compost heap against the wall sounds like a good source of heat. I'm surprised that the councils haven't made it compulsory.

Er ... and the other 31% are what exactly?

Click to enlarge. As to the gist well it sounds like a good idea but what about the malicious and frivolous accusations it's bound to engender? More jobs for the salaried classes of course, more pressure on low paid carers doing their best to cope. Out-of-hours, unannounced, get-up-go-round-and-gaze inspections rather than relying on the current announced paper-trail visits might be an idea. Mind you this would involve public servants getting up in the middle of the night, so it's probably a no-no.

Oh and isn't there already a body who investigate all allegations of physical abuse...... the police.

Musical Interlude

Obviously the revival of Irish hasn't gone quite as well as it should have.

But never mind, here we have the best motor sport song since Arriva Tazio by Trio Lescano, plus some epic bad driving and a guest appearance by everyone's favourite rally marshal.

Nothing on the Blog?

No new posts? I'm blaming a bit of a breakthrough I recently made on the family history front in finally identifying a great grandfather from Monmouthshire's Black Domain. This led to far too much time spent investigating such interesting topics as the anti-Irish riots in Pontlottyn in 1869 - an idea for a future post here, Radnorians involved in South Wales riots.

It turns out that this difficult to track down ancestor's paternal line ends up in New Quay in Cardiganshire or Cei Newy as his father informed the census enumerator. The maternal line goes back to that little bit of Radnor irredenta that is the Herefordshire parish of Huntington.

More posts to come? Well Piers Corbyn is predicting a December as cold and as snowy as that of 2010. So hopefully enforced shopping trips, at least, will be at a minimum.

Hamlet the Dane

The Welsh Land Commission, set up by the government to enquire into the relationship between tenants and landlords, came to Rhayader to take evidence in May 1894. As well as hearing from tenants who had suffered injustices, such as being evicted without compensation for the improvements they had made to their holdings, the commissioners also took evidence from tenants who had nothing but praise for the landowning class. One such claimed that he doubted if many tenants would come forward to complain, "We take pride in believing that we are descended from Hamlet the Dane. We are not exactly Cymro in Radnorshire."

"Then how came you to have the name David Lloyd?" asked commissioner Rhys to laughter from the audience.

"A colony of Danes settled in Radnor from whom I say we are descended" replied the tenant, which was no doubt news to the eminent chair of Celtic at Jesus College, Oxford.

So why did Mr Lloyd claim kinship with the Danes? A hint of something had been reported in Archaeologia Cambrensis in 1881: "I have heard a legend in Radnorshire that the 'Denes' (Danes) ploughed the hills; and if you ask who the 'Denes' were, you will be told simply that the 'Denes' were red men."

So there may well have been some legend or other floating around. The real reason though must lie with the attitudes of the day. The Welsh, for "Radnorshire's most distinguished son" George Cornewall Lewis and his circle of Liberal Old Etonian chums, had been "a miserable race of Celtic savages." Meanwhile scientists obsessed about negrescence and the superiority of the Anglo-Saxon to the Celts of Wales and Ireland. Little wonder that the occasional Radnorian might clutch at the straw, however farfetched, of belonging to a Teutonic tribe.

Myfanwy Fenton

While wilfing around the internet I came across this reprint of a book originally published in 1863, you can actually read an online version if you have the time to spare!

So who was this Myfanwy Fenton who also translated a book from Icelandic, published in 1877, called Three Sketches of Life in Iceland and a book of poems, St. Lawrence Orphanage published in Copenhagen in 1874?

Myfanwy was the grand-daughter of the Pembrokeshire literary figure Richard Fenton, in the 1851 Census she is living at Glynamel, Fishguard with her uncle John Fenton. She is described as being a governess, 25, born in Waltham, Lincolnshire. From other sources she can be identified as being the daughter of John's brother Richard, a clergyman.

John Fenton was an interesting character, an artist, a musician and archaeologist and Examiner at the Foreign Branch of the War Office. According to his nephew he was "a man of dissipated life, learnt in the circle of Carlton House and association there with the Prince Regent and his companions."

Myfanwy/Myvanwy was an unusual name in Wales in the first half of the 19C, with just 3 examples in the 1851 Census, although maybe there were a few more transcribed incorrectly. In the 1841 Census John Fenton is recorded as staying in the Denbighshire home of Jane, wife of his brother-in-law the Welsh scholar Aneurin Owen. The Owens also had a daughter Myvanwy, born around the same time as Fenton's niece.

Myfanwy Fenton isn't found in any census after 1851. In the 1870s she was a language teacher living in Copenhagen. The book of poetry she published there was dedicated to Baroness Mohrenheim, wife of the Russian envoy to Denmark. Given her uncle's association with the War Office I'd like to imagine that Myfanwy was a spy.

A Radnorshire Jury ..... to be continued

It seemed an open and shut case, Samuel Williams of Norton had stolen Richard Stephens' coat. There was surprise when the jury asked if they could retire to consider the verdict and incredulity when they returned three hours later with a not guilty verdict. They had been unable to agree the jurymen admitted, so in the end they had cast lots. One public spirited member having sacrificed his walking stick for the purpose.

The magistrates were outraged, the verdict was set aside and the matter sent forward to the next Assize. As for the jurymen they were fined £5 each, a sizeable sum in 1834.

Jo-Jo and the Chambermaid

In 1910 it seems that a husband was legally responsible for the slanderous words uttered by his wife, which is why Mr J found himself as a defendant in a slander case brought at Glamorgan Assizes by a former employee of his Llandrindod hotel.

The plaintiff, 25 year old Miss L, owed her French surname not to Paris but to her Jersey born father. Infact she was from Brynmelin in Swansea. Mary, the hotel management insisted on calling her Edith, had something of a chequered past, having been dismissed from previous posts for dishonesty. Still Mr J, a prominent Liberal politician in the county, had given the girl a second chance, although, no doubt, his wife kept a watchful eye on the new recruit.

One permanent resident of the hotel was the talented Mr B. He had previously been engaged to Mr J's daughter but she had tragically died. A favourite of the maids who christened him Jo-Jo, the young but sickly Mr B was manager of the town's Electric Light Company and chairman of its Steam Laundry Company.

One evening Mrs J suspected that Mr B was entertaining Miss L in his room and barged in, conducting a search by looking under the bed and in the wardrobe. Finding nothing Mrs J went to look for Miss L, only to catch a glimpse of the errant maid leaving the room she had just examined. Accusations were levelled and the maid dismissed from her employment. This it was that led the blameless Mr J and his accusatory spouse to be sat in Cardiff while the hotel's dirty washing was displayed before a courtroom audience populated, the papers sniggered, by a large number of ministers of religion.

Yes, said one witness, a couple of the maids at the hotel, let's call it Hill Breeze, did spend time in guests' rooms of an evening. Maggie and Hetty and Polly gave evidence that favoured their mistress, while Miss L's employment history was dissected by the hotel owners' counsel, the MP for Carmarthenshire East and the MP for Anglesey - I did mention that Mr J was a prominent local Liberal. Mind you the maid (a labourer's daughter, so hardly wealthy) was represented by a KC. It makes one think that there may have been some political skulduggery afoot.

Indeed it was the maid's counsel who won the day, producing a medical certificate which confirmed that Miss L was ........ well the newspapers didn't spell it out. In the light of this revelation Mrs J was forced to concede that her suspicions must have been ill-founded. Verdict £100 and costs to the plaintiff.

Nothing in the Papers

I bought this book - it's a general history of Britain up to the present day - a few years ago and I'd happily pass it on to Oxfam except for the fact I wouldn't want the unsuspecting to read nonsense like this:

"If she could speak, would her words be in Old English - a Germanic language - rather than the Gaelic and Latin used by the townspeople of Roman Dorchester."

It isn't an isolated example of the author - he was Chief Archaeologist with English Heritage - using Gaelic when he means Brythonic, the ancestral language of Welsh not Irish.

According to the Sunday Times this "massively informative" volume will help cure "our current identity crisis." If the English do have an identity crisis it might help if widely held prejudices be put aside and the Welsh/British contribution to their history be given a little more consideration.

All in all a book that suggests that archaeologists should stick to bonekicking.

Moving on .......... There are those who believe that the 15C bard Llawdden comes from Loughor while others maintain he was from Machynlleth. I think I'm correct in saying that the earliest manuscript reference to his origins says he was Maelienydd, which later went to contribute much of modern day Radnorshire. Certainly there is agreement that his poems show that he lived here, possibly in Cefnllys. It seems that Llawdden was a very rare Welsh forename, and here's an example from 16C Radnorshire. It's from the 1546 Lay Subsidy for that part of Llanddewi Ystradenni parish in Knighton hundred: Llowthen ap David. It's Lloyden in the 1543 version and in the Radnorshire Society's index to the Lay Subsidy, so I guess it could get overlooked. Who knows, maybe a grandson of the bard.

Hwntws or Gogs (part One)

If the Welsh dialect of St Harmon and Cwmteuddwr was similar to that of neighbouring Montgomeryshire and the lost dialects of places like Glasbury and Boughrood were similar to close at hand Breconshire parishes such as Talgarth, then somewhere within Radnorshire, south must have met with north.

As far as I know the dialectologists never managed to get hold of a speaker of Radnorian Welsh from the Rhayader area, even though some, doubtless as rare and unnoticed as pine martens, must have lived on well into the 20C. Fat chance of them interviewing folk who lived in parishes where Welsh had disappeared by the 19C then.

But hang on, riding to the rescue is Richard Suggett, the fellow who authored that splendid book on Radnorshire houses. Rotting away in the archives he discovered reports of slander cases where the words of long dead Radnorians come back to life. An example from Gladestry in 1726 "Di gyrn di dorrws y twlle sydd in di hatt di" - "Your horns tore the holes that are in your hat." Now the interesting thing here is the use of the verb ending ws rather than odd - dorrws not dorrodd - this is a feature of the dialects of South East Wales. The map shows the use of these two endings in Radnorshire slander cases from the 16th, 17th, and 18th centuries - info from here.

From the look of things Elfael - at least the hundred of Painscastle and maybe Colwyn as well - seems more influenced by Gwenhwyseg (Gwentian Welsh) than do Maelienydd and Gwerthrynion - the hundreds of Knighton, Cefnllys and Rhayader.

Nothing to report

Just imagine what the BBC and its media pals would have made of this if it had been said by someone whose politics they didn't like, Condi Rice for example.

Keywords

It's always interesting to check out the keywords used to find the blog. Some provide ideas for a post, while others just leave you puzzled. Why for example should I get regular hits from searchers looking for "London transport bus found on the moon?"

I'm not sure what to make of the following search term that popped up a couple of days ago. I could understand if it originated in Builth, but this was from Lyon in France:

The Spannerman's Tale

Maybe it's old age but even today's stars seem less interesting than the spannermen of the 1950s. I doubt for example if Button or Hamilton will ever inspire a volume as good as the 1957 autobiography (as told to Peter Lewis) Alf Francis, Racing Mechanic.

Someone who figured prominently in that book was Alf's youthful protege Tony Robinson. Now, getting on for 60 years after he first worked with the Polish-born Francis, we're promised an autobiography of Robinson himself (as told to Ian Wagstaff).

No doubt tales of Stirling Moss will dominate but hopefully Innes Ireland will get a look-in, Robinson was chief mechanic with the BRP team when the Scotsman led them on the track in 1962, 1963 and 1964. You can watch the pair around the 0.54 mark in this rather wonderful footage as Innes explains to a patient Tony how he's just bent the car.

Will it match up to the Francis book? With a promised 160 pages and 120 photographs compared to the dense, 300 plus information packed pages of the 1950s page-turner it's doubtful. But at least it's not another Hamilton bio.

"Died for England"

Above is the somewhat Gothic war memorial in the Radnorshire village of Norton, it was designed to serve as a horse trough and drinking fountain. The wording on the memorial is of interest since it was "erected by the grateful village of Norton to commemorate the names of its faithful sons who fought and died for England and liberty."

Should this wording annoy patriotic Cymry? There was a time when no sooner had some Welsh folk set foot on mainland Europe than they would boast, maddeningly, about England or how they had met "another English couple." As if their new found friends were saying the same about them! Nowadays I think we can excuse the good villagers of Norton for this historical anomaly. In any case the wording on the memorial is probably quite accurate. I did look-up the census records of the two First World War names on the monument and was surprised that the elder brother of one, a 20 year old born in Heyop, was listed as being able to speak Welsh. An error or perhaps the result of a period of work in a Welsh speaking area?

Mind you when I saw this during a Google search I did have a potentially dangerous rise in blood pressure, only saved by the realisation that it was a cock-up confusion with some place in Leicestershire rather than a plot to tweeify Radnorshire :

Averse to acknowledge any Lord

In the early 1630s a strapped-for-cash King Charles sold the crown estate of Maelienydd to some rogues or other, much to the consternation of the citizenry of Radnorshire. Their solution was to make a collection, they raised £741 12s, which they then gave to the king as a gift, with the helpful suggestion that he might like to use the windfall to buy back what he had so recently sold. Charles did indeed re-purchase the lordship of Maelienydd but was soon in negotiation with Thomas Harley of Brampton Bryan to lease out the land. Harley's plan was to charge rent to the many hundreds of squatters on the commons. This caused such a kerfuffle that the plan was abandoned, although the Harleys were able to get their paws on the lordship during Cromwell's dictatorship.

Moving on to 1758 and King George leased out the wastes and commons of the lordship of Maelienydd - a substantial portion of the parishes of Llanddewi, Llanbister, Bugeildy, Heyop, Llanbadarn Fynydd, Llananno, Llanfihangel Rhydeithon, Llangynllo, Gladestry, Colfa, St Harmon, Cwmteuddwr and Nantmel. Again the plan was to squeeze the hundreds of squatter families by charging them rent. Such was the opposition both physical and legal, that the scheme was abandoned, the crown agent, John Lewis of Harpton, complaining of "'the natural dispositions of people being averse to turn tenants and acknowledge any Lord."

Of course the resistance of the cottagers to enclosure was to be a feature of 19C Radnorshire, just as it had been in the previous two centuries. Radnorshire had a larger percentage of freeholders than in some Welsh counties and these, together with the squatters, meant that there were a substantial number of folk who were indeed "averse to turn tenants and acknowledge any Lord." I wonder if they were the descendants of the troublesome class called manwyr in the works of the bard Sion Ceri, poor folk with a pedigree, the younger sons of younger sons. They certainly seem ready to use the law and even physical force to uphold their rights.

Perhaps these independently minded folk were responsible for the very rapid process of language shift in Radnorshire. Firstly they lived in proximity to England and so had the possiblity of picking up the English language through everyday discourse. Secondly they had every reason to learn English in order to protect themselves from men who would be their masters.

A 150 years before Saunders Lewis' lecture Tynged yr Iaith the Radnorshire historian Jonathan Williams discussed language shift in the border parish of Bugeildy. His analysis of why this had occured seems very modern:

"An increased intercourse with England, a more general interchange of the commodities and produce of these two countries respectively, and, above all, the introduction of that jurisprudence with which the inhabitants of Wales found it necessary to be familiarized, as well as the diction in which all legal pleadings, deeds, conveyances, processes, &c., are executed, soon undermined that predilection for their mother tongue which was before their distinguishing character, and rendered the study and acquisition of the English language necessary, not only as an accomplishment, but also as a matter of indispensable interest."

Well it made me laugh

An Englishman, an Irishman and a Scotsman walked into a bar ............ the Welshman was still in New Zealand.

Forgotten Radnorian?

On the face of it Enoch Powell isn't a Forgotten Radnorian at all. His Radnorshire connections are mentioned in biographies written by competent authors and put out by reliable publishers.

Mr Powell would make a worthy addition to the list of those Radnorians who have made a contribution to Welsh scholarship. After all he was the joint editor of Llyfr Blegywryd, an edition of a version of the Laws of Hywel Dda published by the University Of Wales.

Unfortunately when we look for a Radnorian connection what do we find? It's easy enough to trace the Powells as far back as the mid 18C, they come from Somerset. Likewise his mother's family, the Breezes, are found in Newport, Shropshire. His other grandparents' lines show no recent Radnorshire roots either.

A case of authors repeating "a fact" for which they have no evidence?

At Least it's not a €

So the new £50 note, featuring former Radnorshire resident James Watt, comes into circulation on 2nd November.

By the time the current generation of politicians have finished bailing out their banker pals we'll be lucky if it'll buy a packet of wine gums from Doldowlod's Spar Shop.

Theomania in Llanyre

Since 120 years is hardly any time at all in Radnorshire terms, you will forgive your blogger for being somewhat reticent in naming names and places in the following tale of religious mania from 1890.

The events, which created quite a stir in and around Llandrindod, commenced when two farming brothers began purchasing astrological materials which, together with articles in the religious press, convinced them that they were Moses and Aaron, some reports say Jesus and the Anti-Christ, and that their sister was Miriam. Their behaviour had already set tongues wagging but on one February morning the pair visited neighbours imploring them to come with them as they were journeying to heaven. No-one took up their offer except for a servant girl of sixteen who tagged along as they proceeded from Llanyre towards Llandrindod and then on towards Crossgates, singing hymns and shouting ecstatically as they went.

The servant girl's master rode after the party, persuading a Constable Price to give chase. The pilgrims were eventually overtaken and fisticuffs ensued, Moses and Aaron being subdued with the help of a local farmer and a gardener. The pilgrimage, now joined by curious on-lookers, continued, but this time in the direction of the cells at Penybont police station rather than the promised land. There was no police station in Llandrindod at that time, indeed Penybont was the headquarters of the Radnorshire Constabulary. Safely lodged in the cells, their young convert had wanted to join them but was chased away, the brothers were soon committed to the asylum in Abergavenny. Their sister Miriam, who was gripped with the same mania was deemed safe to remain at home.

The brothers couldn't have remained in Abergavenny very long, within a couple of months the eldest brother had married a sixteen year old bride, presumably their young convert. The couple were still farming in the locality at the time of the 1911 census.

"Some Young Cymro"

I knew that Winifred the mother of the poet Kit Smart was a Radnorian, indeed he boasted of the fact - who wouldn't - in Jubilate Agno: For I am the seed of the Welch Woman and speak the truth from my heart. What I didn't know was that Winifred was the daughter or less likely the grand-daughter of Jeremiah Griffiths of Downton House, New Radnor, which of course is where Innes Ireland lived during his time in Radnorshire.

While wilfing around the matter I also noticed that the novelist Thackery was the great grandson of one Sarah Griffiths of Downton House, the niece of said Winifred. I'm not going to claim Thackery as a Radnorian but Christopher Smart? Certainly.