Reading Matters

I hadn't come across this blog before, but it has plenty of Radnorshire content.  Well worth delving into on a rainy day.

Symbols

Who knew that when the 15C bard Lewis Glyn Cothi thanked the men of Elfael for the gift of a horse by invoking the blessings of the cross of Tyfaelog, now in Llowes parish church, he was infact praising a symbol of white power?  This at least was the implication of last night's Panorama programme about soccer hooliganism in the Ukraine and Poland.

The Panorama programme did give the impression that Poland and Ukraine are hotbeds of neo-Nazism. While this doesn't appear to have had much impact in recent parliamentary elections, it certainly seems as if the two countries do have a problem with street graffiti and public order at soccer matches.  It is also true that these hooligans have adopted the Celtic cross as a symbol of their violent and xenophobic ideology, indeed the political use of the Keltenkreuz is banned in Germany. Hopefully even the assiduous centralists of the Brussels bureaucracy will not seek to extend the ban into Radnorshire.

A Great British Story?

I think we can all agree that the Welsh, the Irish and the Picts inhabited the British Isles before the coming of the Romans.  DNA throws up new discoveries every week but even so there seems to be a consensus that the greater part of the English population can also trace its roots in these islands to pre-Roman times.  Given these facts why on earth would the new BBC television series The Great British Story presented by historian Michael Wood ignore all this and start a series about British* history with the Romans?

Now I usually enjoy Wood's TV work but the first episode of his new series was a mess.  It seemed to me that Wood's common sense had collided with the usual BBC agenda - patricianism, big-Europeanism and the virtues of multiculturalism: well cheap domestic labour, exotic restaurants and villas in Tuscany anyway.  No wonder they think British history began with Rome.

*Of course I mean British in the geographical sense, since as a political reality you'd have to wait until the 18C before Britishness was invented.

UPDATE:  The second part of this show was .....well another fine mess.  Basque is not a Celtic language as someone in a Llangrannog pub suggested and the Scots (AKA Irish) weren't from Strathclyde as Michael Wood said at one point.  Never mind, no-one noticed, not even on twitter, and the programme does fulfil its primary purpose - to push an agenda of the aptly named BBC.

Pause for thought

It was a Friday afternoon in June 1889 in Llandrindod's Bridge Hotel* as Mr Osborne, a Neath grocer, packed his bags in preparation for catching the evening train to South Wales. There was no mention of Mr Osborne's wife Ellen in the subsequent newspaper reports so the sudden appearance of a female through the open window of Mr Osborne's room might have set tongues wagging. Unfortunately the female in question was a full grown African lioness escaped from Wombwell's Travelling Menagerie, which was encamped on a nearby piece of waste ground.

Of course we need to take tales of big cats, both then and now, with a pinch of salt.  After all the escaped tiger myth of the 1890s was a Radnorshire joke at the expense of the big city journalists.  In this case, however, the story seems true enough.  The 50 year old defended himself stoutly with a chair and was soon rescued by the staff of the menagerie who eventually bundled the lioness back into captivity.

Lions aside, what I find interesting about Victorian Llandrindod is the number of local families with an entrepreneurial streak who built up the town.  The Wildings at the Bridge hotel or the Thomas family of Penybont who established the Central Wales Emporium for example. We could do with some of that get-up-and-go today ....... the expansive car park that is the modern-day county council, not so much.

 *Years later of course the Bridge Hotel would be renamed the Metropole, for the sensible reason that the then owner, Mrs Miles, had purchased some second-hand china resplendent with the letter M.  In 1889 the hotel was still owned by the local Wilding family who had named their business after the bridge over the nearby Arlais brook. It had originally been called Coleman's hotel after its first owner Mr Coleman, a Howey based grocer and draper.

The Radnorshire Example

It's often said that the Irish hunger strikes of the 1980s were an unforeseen consequence of Gwynfor Evans' successful threat to starve himself to death if the Thatcher government failed to live up to its manifesto commitment to establish a Welsh language TV channel.  Perhaps another Welsh example, indeed in part a Radnorshire example, led to an earlier event which set Irish history on an equally tragic path.

I've argued before that Radnorshire Rebeccaism in the 19C is faintly reminiscent of events in rural Ireland.  Perhaps I was wrong, but not in the way one might think. Rather than Radnorshire echoing Ireland,  it was the rebellious Welsh peasantry who provided an example to their more timid Irish counterparts.

Writing in March 1846 in the Freeman's Journal - Ireland's leading newspaper of the day - T. M. Ray, the secretary of O'Connell's Repeal Association, highlighted the successes of the Welsh Rebeccaites, including those of Radnorshire.  In a long essay he mentions the destruction of the Newbridge gate and details the way in which 200 armed marchers advanced to the Lion Inn in Rhayader, in open challenge to a cowed authority.

The Welsh, Ray wrote, "did not spend years upon years supplicating the legislature; they made no appeal to popular opinion, but took the brief method of physical force. At once - they annihilated nuisances, wrecked dwellings, burned farmhouses, put the landlords to flight, organised arms, beat the police, beat the constables, met the military sword to sword and put them to flight."  And what was their reward for these open acts of rebellion?  Well "the public authorities entered into negotiations with the "rebels" for the reestablishment of peace.  Such occurrence will hardly be credited in Ireland.  The lieutenants and magistrates suing with the "delegates" of the Ribbonmen and Molly Maguires for the cessation of hostilities."

This was at the height of the famine years and Ray contrasted the position of small farmers in rebellious Wales, forced to live on barley bread and buttermilk, flummery and potatoes,  with those in the more law abiding Irish countryside.  "Alas! Alas! how happy would be the small farmers of Ireland if they had only the certainty of fare which the Welsh mountaineers despise."

Ray's article may have had little effect on the breakaway, a few months later, from O'Connells Association,  which would lead in 1848 to the Young Ireland rebellion.  A minor affair but with long term consequences and perhaps inspired in a small way by the example of the Rebeccaites assembled at Rhayader's Lion Hotel.

Jubilee

My maternal grandmother was born in 1880 at the Clywedog Arms in Llanddewi Ystradenni.  Within a few months the family had moved to Fochriw in the industrial South.  Her subsequent movements were fairly typical of the Welsh working class - various mining villages, a return to Radnorshire in the 1930s, then on to Harrow and Watford during the wartime years.  Unlike the majority of her grandchildren she never made it to Australia, dying in Weston Super Mare in 1960.

You'd have a difficult job finding the Clywedog Arms in Llanddewi today, and not just because it lost its licence in 1910. It was actually located in a tiny, detached part of that parish, located where the Gravel Road meets the A44, between Crossgates and Gwystre.  Sixty years ago the good citizens of Llanbadarn Fawr were certainly aware that these few acres were not in their parish, they suggested Nantmel.  The burghers of Nantmel were equally convinced that it was part of Llanbadarn.  The end result was that your blogger was one of the few infants in Radnorshire publicly denied a Coronation mug.  An event which no doubt contributed to my agreeing with Ronnie Reagan's opinion that the most beautiful word in the English language is the word Republic.

Nothing in the Papers

Back in the 1950s Highland Moors on the outskirts of Llandrindod - you can just about make it out in this snap - was a residential school for pupils suffering with TB.  The B&R reports that at a recent reunion a former pupil, Welsh rugby legend Clive Griffiths, made a speech.  I think they meant Clive Rowlands.

If the B&R hasn't been the same since they took the advertisements off the front page then what about the Mid-Wales Journal?  They report that author Catrin Daffyd recently spoke to pupils at Builth High School.  Catrin Daffyd?  Ignorance or a joke?  Either way they should stop pretending to be a Welsh paper and go back to being called the Wellington Journal.

Meanwhile the Evening Standard manages a sly dig at Wales and the Eisteddfod in its review of the Indonesian martial arts epic The Raid*.  Now I'm no great fan of the Gorsedd but what about the Hay Festival.  The sight of the London glitterati being pursued by a bunch of Javanese kickboxers would be entertaining and socially useful.

* The film concerns a police team trapped in a tower block inhabited by homicidal criminals. Director Gareth Huw Evans is originally from Hirwaun.  Hirwaun, tower block?  That figures.

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.