Up the Fron

When I was a young lad living down the Gravel Road, the Fron - and we always called it the Fron, a translation I guess of Y Fron - was a mere suburb of Crossgates. Nowadays, it seems to have graduated into a place that deserves its own roadsign, which is only right and proper, as it surely had an identity long before Crossgates had a gate.



The 15C bard Lewis Glyn Cothi composed a couple of poems to Dafydd Goch ap Maredudd, a local chieftain from the parish of Llanbadarn Fawr - the 1995 edition of Glyn Cothi's work says Llanbadarn Fynydd but that doesn't make much sense. Firstly because Dafydd's descent group - Llywarch ap Bran - had land in Llanbadarn Fawr but not in Llanbadarn Fynydd, secondly because references to the river Cymaron being in the locality - nowadays misspelt Cwmaran by those who should know better - are much more appropriate to Llanbadarn Fawr. The clincher for me is this line in one of the poems - Yn y ty fry ar y fron - OK you could translate that as "in the house up on the hill" but isn't "in the house up on the Fron" more likely?

Oh I just realised that some readers might not know that the Fron and Crossgates are both in the Radnorshire parish of Llanbadarn Fawr - nothing to do with Aberystwyth.