A Few More Thoughts on the Welsh Language in Radnorshire

If the decline of the Welsh language in Radnorshire has been addressed at all, it has been done so from the viewpoint of geographers. A typical example is the article The Geography of Cultural Transition: The Welsh Borderland 1750-1830 which appeared in the Winter 1979 edition of the National Library of Wales Journal. The article summarises the geographers viewpoint as follows "the upland mass of the county is located between major avenues of anglicisation, the Severn and the Wye Valleys, and so it was cut off from the major Welsh speaking areas to the west."

Ffransis Payne dismissed this viewpoint as "lol i gyd, cynnyrch breuddwydion uwchben y map." ("a load of nonsense, the result of daydreaming over a map.") The truth of Mr Payne's words are well illustrated by one of the maps accompanying the NLWJ article which shows that Welsh language church services persisted in Wye valley parishes such as Boughrood, LlandeiloGraban and Llansteffan long after the language had been dismissed from parishes in the north of the county. The truth is, that far from being an avenue of anglicisation, the Wye valley was something of a stronghold of Welsh, something that the author of the article might have spotted if he had bothered to look at his own maps.

In reality anglicisation spread from the border towns of Presteigne and Knighton, making early inroads - for reasons we will investigate later - into the parishes of the Ithon valley.

The census of 1891 and 1901 shows Welsh persisting at that date to an extent in Cwmteuddwr, Rhayader, St Harmon and parts of Nantmel. There is precious little evidence for it elsewhere in the county, even amongst those who would have been born early in the nineteenth century in parishes where you would have expected at least a few old folk to be recorded as using Welsh. In part this is because the census was asking about language use rather than language ability. I also believe that there was an element of prejudice in Radnorshire towards the language. As an example I know that my great grandmother from Carmarthenshire spoke Welsh occasionally with her husband born in Diserth in the 1850s. In the Diserth census she is listed as bilingual while my great grandfather is not. I spoke about this once with one of my great uncles born in the 1890s. He was most upset at the suggestion that either of his parents spoke Welsh, I might as well have accused them of being thieves.

In order to gain some insight into the position of the language in the first third of the nineteenth century, I have examined the 1891 census for 263 individuals listed as being born in Radnorshire before 1820 but living outside the county itself. Of course it is quite likely that some of these individuals left the county at an early age, while others might have picked up Welsh in the mines of South Wales. Infact hardly any of these Radnorshire migrants went to the Welsh speaking rural counties and surprisingly few to the more Welsh speaking industrial areas. The great majority went to parishes just across the border in Brecon and Montgomery, to rural English speaking Monmouthshire and the more anglicised towns of the South Wales coalfield such as Tredegar.

Of our 263 Radnorshire born individuals aged 70 or over at the time of the 1891 census 29% were bilingual and 4% spoke only Welsh - 67% were English monoglots. When we look at the birth places of these migrants we find that 60% born in Rhayader Hundred use Welsh - those that can't are mainly from Nantmel or have moved to anglicised areas; from Colwyn Hundred the figure of Welsh speakers is 34%, and from Painscastle Hundred 24%. When we look at the Hundreds of Knighton and Cefnllys the position is quite different with only 10% listed as Welsh speakers and most of those coming from Cefnllys parish itself. The figure for Radnor Hundred is 12% but the number of individuals involved, fourteen, is really too small to be of much use.

I believe that these figures provide a fairly accurate view of the position of Welsh in Radnorshire during the first third of the nineteenth century. Welsh is still widely spoken as a hearth language in Rhayader Hundred with English making rapid inroads into Nantmel. A fair amount of Welsh is still spoken in Colwyn parishes such as Diserth, but English is rapidly gaining the upper hand. there is still some Welsh spoken in parishes lower down the Wye such as Bochrwyd and Glasbury but, as a hearth language, Welsh has already disappeared from the north and the east of the county.

Welsh in St Harmon in 1901

The 1901 census shows that around 25% of the population of St Harmon's parish were recorded as being able to speak Welsh at the start of the twentieth century. A good number of these Welsh speakers were actually born in the neighbouring parishes of Llangurig and Cwmteuddwr; among those who were recorded as being born in St Harmon parish itself the number of Welsh speakers fell to 19%. While a majority of locally born people over the age of 60 spoke Welsh and nearly 40% of those aged between 40 and 59, in the 20 to 39 age group the figure falls to 12%, with only 8% of those under 20 being listed as Welsh speakers.

A useful term used in the Victorian period was the language of the hearth, the language spoken by the family around the fireside. It is a good indication of the real strength of the language in a given area. Although there were no Welsh monoglots in St Harmon parish, the fact that everyone in a household was able to speak Welsh suggests it was the hearth language. Of the 138 households in the parish just 19 could be classed as Welsh speaking, 67 were wholly English speaking and 52 had a mixture of bilinguals and English monoglots, indicating that the language of the hearth must have been English. Although a majority of households in St Harmon included at least one Welsh speaker, the fact that in just 14% of homes Welsh was the language of the hearth shows that the parish was approaching the final stages of language shift at the time of the 1901 Census.

It is interesting to look at the position of Welsh amongst children aged 10 and under. This was the era of large families and 20% of the total population of the parish fell into this category. Of the 123 children in this age group just 9 were bilingual, 8 being children of bilingual couples and just 1 having a bilingual father and an English speaking mother. 71 were children of English speaking monoglots, 16 were children of bilingual parents but being brought up as English speakers and a further 27 were English speaking children with one or other of their parents being able to speak Welsh.

Long distance migration was not a factor in the process of language shift in St Harmon, indeed there were only two English households in the parish, although one of these was inevitably the home of the school mistress. The parish did not have a gentry house which probably explains why Welsh language services in the parish church lingered after they had been abandoned in the more Welsh speaking parish of Cwmteuddwr. What we have here is bilingualism, allowing Welsh speaking parents to bring up their children as English monoglots, and the slow wave of language shift hastened by short distance movements of families and marriage partners from neighbouring parishes which had already sunk beneath the tide of Anglicisation.

More Questions than Answers

A one page article about the old Epynt motorcycle circuit in the recent July issue of Classic Bike magazine causes a few thoughts to cross the mind. The most obvious being, you're not going to even begin to do justice to the subject in one page.

Luckily the post-war Epynt races are the subject of one of the best Mid Wales resources on the web, the silverdragons site. Now this may not be the best designed site - in my experience Firefox seems to dislike it intensely - but as far as content goes, well it's irreplaceable. And there's another point, what if it gets taken down? Whereas a book or a magazine is always going to be available, a web site can disappear over night. Perhaps websites are going to be like medieval manuscripts, surviving by sheer chance because someone, somewhere, made a copy.

A final point, Mid Wales may not be famous for very much, but in motorsport terms it has something of an international heritage. So why do local councils and schools not do a lot more to exploit that heritage for the benefit of the local community? Most local people have grown up with and support motorsport, it's a pity that our public bodies don't embrace the fact.

Rebecca's Law

The recent oil price rise seems to have provided an excuse for all manner of businesses to hike their prices. Back in 1854 the good citizens of Mid Wales seem to have had fairly radical ideas of how to deal with such opportunism.

Perhaps we might see an historical reenactment during Llandrindod's eagerly awaited but somewhat overly genteel Victorian Festival?

You may kiss the Bride ..... not you Stirling.

Interesting piece of memorabilia for sale on ebay at the moment. A press photograph of Innes Ireland's wedding to Edna Humphries at Caxton Hall on 7th December 1967. It was Innes's second marriage and Stirling Moss was the bestman, I believe Miss Humphries was employed as a secretary at the British Racing Partnership.

Are Radnorians really Gogs?

In 1897 the great Welsh scholar Sir John Rhys (1840-1915) produced this rough sketch of Welsh dialects in a letter he sent to Sir Edward Anwyl. Rhys believed that dialects could be differentiated by vowel sounds and was hoping to set up, what today would be called a working party, in order to map these vowel changes.

Unfortunately this proposal came to nothing, perhaps because Anwyl believed that there was no method available at the time to gauge the vowel sounds scientifically. Anwyl believed that collecting word lists would be more useful.

This word list approach was followed by Alan R Thomas when he produced his Linguistic Geography of Wales in 1973. Unfortunately, for some reason, that book ignored the Welsh still being spoken at the time in parishes to the east of Llanwrtyd, an unfortunate omission.

For me Rhys's approach seems far more sensible. After all using words originating in rhyming slang doesn't make me a Cockney. What is interesting about the map was that Rhys placed Radnorshire in the same dialect area as Welsh speakers in Meirionydd and South West Montgomeryshire. Rhys came from Ponterwyd and was well acquainted with Welsh speaking natives of the Rhayader area, so here his opinions have great validity. But did the folk of Aberedw speak a different dialect to the folk of Erwood? And while the similarities between the North Radnorshire accent and that of the Welsh speaking areas of Montgomeryshire is plain enough, would Welsh speakers in Clyro have sounded differently from their neighbours in Talgarth? I'm sure that these dialect differences have some bearing on the decline of Welsh in Radnorshire, but what?

These are interesting questions and more than a hundred years after Rhys made his proposal I'm not aware that it has been addressed by our academics. If anyone has any views or comments on this topic I'd be pleased to hear from you!

Didn't Get Very Far

Who knows what you'll find when you're wilfing around the internet and here's a classic from the archives of Mid Wales Motor Sport.

No sign of two of the club's competition stalwarts C H Jones and W S Griffiths, perhaps they were still in the bar. Anyway Mr Griffiths is being encouraged to pen an account of his, never less than colourful, 28 year career around the lanes and forests of Wales. Can't see it happening myself but at least he's come up with a suitable title for the book. I've borrowed it for the title of the post!

Welsh in Cwmteuddwr Parish 1901

According to Professor Geraint Jenkins' Introduction to Language and Community in the Nineteenth Century a volume in the series A Social History of the Welsh Language, of which the Professor is the General Editor: "the sparsely populated county of Radnorshire had lost its native tongue by the early nineteenth century." Here's a little tip Professor, check out the 1901 Census figures for Cwmteuddwr parish.

Infact the 1901 Census figures show 4% of the population of the parish speaking only Welsh, 70% speaking only English and 26% speaking both languages. Of course these figures are distorted by the presence of large numbers of workmen employed on the Elan Valley schemes. This has inflated the number of Welsh monoglots, but, at the same time, has also inflated the figure speaking only English. If we look only at those individuals actually born within the parish itself, a different picture emerges. Now we find that 36% of the Cwmteuddwr born residents are shown as Welsh speaking. In the over 60 age group the figure is 80% and even in the 20-40 age range 49% are still being recorded as Welsh speaking. Only in those aged under 10 does the figure able to speak Welsh fall below 10%.

What we have here is a process of language shift, a generation or so more advanced than that seen in Llanafanfawr. What is incontrovertible is that the viewpoint expressed by the academics that Welsh had disappeared from Radnorshire by the early nineteenth century is wrong, and that the story of the decline of the Welsh language in the county must be told parish by parish.

The Decline of the Welsh language in Radnorshire - Language Shift

The first census to bother itself with the Welsh language was that of 1891, and of subsequent enquiries, only that of 1901 has so far been published in detail. By that time the process of language shift in most Radnorshire parishes was complete, but in order to gain some insight into how the process would have occurred we can examine the 1901 Census figures for the nearby Breconshire parish of Llanafanfawr.

The language of an area can change in two ways: by the replacement of the original population by newcomers, as has happened in Tasmania for example; or as in Tipperary, to take another example, by the original population ditching the old language in favour of the new. Despite some ridiculous claims to the contrary it is this second process that swept across the Radnorshire countryside in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The key to this shift is bilingualism, individuals must speak the new before they can turn their back on the old.

Turning to Llanafanfawr we find that in 1901 the parish could still be considered part of Y Fro Gymraeg with 72.6% of the population being able to speak Welsh. Yet the process of language shift was well under way with the 10% of the population unable to speak English already outnumbered by the 27% who claimed to know no Welsh.

If we examine those individuals speaking English we can see just how language shift occurs. In 15 households we find Welsh speaking parents bringing up their children to speak only English. If we add a further two households where locally born parents claimed, somewhat suspiciously, to speak only English, then these children account for 43 of the 117 English only speakers in the parish.

There are 7 households where a local partner has married a spouse from a nearby but already anglicised parish, here the children are again being brought up as monoglot English speakers. There are also 4 households where families from nearby anglicised parishes have taken farms in Llanafan. Together these account for a further 45 English speakers, mainly children. The fact that the local schoolmaster and his family are also listed as English monoglots is a further nail in the coffin of Welsh.

The reasons why families should want to switch to English are plain enough, after all it was the language of officialdom and, to an ever increasing extent, commerce. The schools, the Anglican church, the railways, the press were all factors driving out Welsh. At the same time bilingualism is largely achieved by day to day contact with the new language and it was the gradual tide of English spreading from Radnorshire and into the Irfon valley, which by 1901 had placed Llanafanfawr in the frontline of language shift.

It is interesting to note that there are 18 households employing English speaking servants. In a number of cases the only domestic servant in a Welsh speaking household was an English monoglot speaker. It seems to me that this may well have been quite deliberate, a means whereby the household could improve its grasp of the English language by daily contact with an English speaker. It is in these ways that the language shift that affected Radnorshire and then much of Builth Hundred would have been achieved.

High Flyers

Discovered some more information about forgotten Brooklands racer Irene Schwedler, I've posted about her before, in the Royal Aero Club records. It seems her full name was Ilse Charlotte Schwedler and she was born in Schwanheim, Germany on 26th January 1906.

The photo isn't Miss Schwedler by the way, it's another lady pilot from the 1930s called Marjorie Clair. A resident of Pinner in Middlesex, she gave her birthplace as Llandrindod Wells. Anyone know who she was? Oh and her house in Pinner was called Cefnllys.

Work of the Forge and not the File

It's a puzzle why so many supporters of the Union think their cause will be furthered by being rude about the Scots and the Welsh. Perhaps they are secret nationalists although somehow I doubt it. Anyway the recent publication of Hugh Trevor-Roper's The Invention of Scotland has certainly given the little England brigade plenty to pontificate about.

Roper's book "identifies" three Scottish myths: the clan tartan, the forged Ossian poems and the ancient Scottish constitution. Now, of course, these three myths were thoroughly debunked long ago, but never mind, it at least gives our friends the frisson of having made some great discovery. Something similar happens quite regularly here in Wales when a visiting journalist hits on the revelation that the Gorsedd and the Welsh National costume were "invented!!"

Of course the really important point, which escapes them, is why the clan tartan or the Welsh costume became so popular or why the Ossianic forgeries had such an influence on the wider cultural scene.

Roper certainly did not identify the Ossianic forgeries as some of his reviewers hint. That was done long ago, not least by Radnorshire's Edward Davies (1756-1831) - he was born at Hendre Einion in Llanfaredd parish. You can read his book, published in 1825, demolishing the Ossian forgery here.

Of course Roper the historian is best remembered for falling hook, line and embarrassing sinker for the forged Hitler Diaries. A sweet irony.

Down Memory Lane

It's September 1962 and your blogger attends his first Formula One event, the Gold Cup race at Oulton Park.

Earlier in the year Stirling Moss had suffered his career ending crash at Goodwood and here we see him attending his first race meeting since leaving hospital.

Old chum Innes Ireland looks pleased to see the maestro back at the track, as does the gentleman with the cap standing between them, Innes's father Bill.

Race winner was Jim Clark in a Lotus 25, so smooth he was boring! The star of the day was undoubtedly Welsh Rhodesian Gary Hocking, killed just a few weeks later, before ever starting a World Championship event, and thus a non-person as far as the encyclopedias are concerned.

The Decline of the Welsh language in Radnorshire - Introduction

The 1891 Census shows two young sisters living at the remote farm of Claerwen in Cwmteuddwr parish. Margaret Lewis was 25 and her sister was 23, they were both born in Radnorshire and neither could speak English. They would surely have agreed with the shepherd girls of Pumlumon who so charmed George Borrow with their guileless hospitality: "What should we do with English here?" In 1891 there were still hundreds of thousands of Welsh people who spoke no English; a third of the population of Merthyr, two thirds of those in the Swansea Valley, a fifth of those in Swansea itself. Even in the Irfon valley parishes to the west of Builth there were hundreds who knew only Welsh.

Radnorshire appeared to be quite different from the rest of Wales. There were less than eighty Welsh monoglots like the Lewis girls in the whole of the county. While the great majority of Radnorshire folk spoke only English, Welsh was still spoken by many in the parishes of Rhaeadr, Cwmteuddwr, and St Harmon, but this was not apparent from the published figures. These were local people and they must have spoken what are now the lost Welsh dialects of Radnorshire. Although many lived on well into the twentieth century, no academics ever bothered to record their speech. Perhaps these professors agreed with the influential scholar Iorweth Peate when he declared that Radnorshire folk were "a deracine society, a people fallen between two stools, a community of half-things." In any case the fact of Radnorshire people speaking Welsh was ignored and the story of the decline of the language in the county, on the rare occasions when it was even addressed, littered with inaccuracies and prejudices.

It is my intention, over the next few months, to address these inaccuracies and prejudices in a series of posts dealing with the decline of the Welsh language in Radnorshire.

Radnor for Obama?

Other than stirring up a language controversy, there's nothing the Western Mail likes better than finding an obscure Welsh connection to someone in the news. Given the number of Welsh folk who emigrated to America at an early date - and after all the continent is named after a Welshman! - finding a Welsh ancestor for presidential hopeful Barack Obama was going to be a dawdle.

Now lets get one thing straight, the township of Radnor in Delaware County, Ohio was not founded by Obama's Anglesey ancestor. No, the Ohio township was founded and was given its name by David Pugh of the parish of Llandeilo Graban in Radnorshire.

Freddie Dixon

This biography of pre-war racer Freddie Dixon is due to be published by Haynes next month. I wonder if there is any chance of a few more such books, concerning the interesting characters who circulated around the tracks in the happy days BBCE, seeing the light of day.

It's surprising how little is really known about these old timers. Even the country's leading motor-sport historian was under the impression that Dixon's 1935 prison sentence followed a fatal accident whilst he was racing Luis Fontes on the public highway.

Infact Freddie was sentenced to three months imprisonment for dangerous and reckless driving on 4th October 1935, in Middlesborough. The incident in which Luis Fontes, a Manchester born ace of Brazilian extraction, killed a motor cyclist, and for which he was subsequently sentenced to three years imprisonment, occurred on 6th October 1935 in Coleshill, Warwickshire. The close proximity of the dates must have led to the subsequent confusion.

Motor Sport history has been dominated to an extent by the rivet counters, after all many of the cars still exist and historic authentication, leading to sales, is big business. Driver biographies haven't usually strayed very far from the race-track. They've also tended towards the hagiographic, with everyone being a bloody good chap. It will be interesting to see where this new biography of Dixon stands.

When Radnor Showed The Way

Here's an interesting letter from the April 1969 edition of Motor Sport. Wonder how much petrol you'd get for a shilling today? About three tablespoons worth if you're lucky!

Y Ffasiynau Diweddaraf

At the beginning of the last century this Llandrindod business found it worthwhile to advertize its products in the Welsh language.

This would have been aimed not just at Welsh speaking visitors to the town, but also at the large market opened up in West Wales via the railway.

More fun than a barrel-load of monkeys!

It seems that the new James Bond film Quantum of Solace (eh?) is going to include a car-chase around Italy's Lake Garda. Old time racing fans will perhaps remember that the lakeside circuit used to host races of the real, rather than the celluloid, variety.

Following the career ending Stirling Moss crash at Goodwood in 1962, Radnorshire based Innes Ireland picked up a number of the great man's scheduled drives. One of these was to compete in that year's Circuito del Garda, driving a works 1 litre Fiat-Abarth. The race saw Innes brushing aside the challenge of team-mate Ludovico Scarfiotti and with victory in the bag the two tiny Abarths cruised in convoy toward the chequered flag as team-orders demanded. A couple of miles from home Scarfiotti saw a chance of some hometown glory and scooted past the surprised Scotsman, hanging-on for a Pironi style victory. No doubt the film will see plenty of similar skulduggery!

Innes was placated somewhat by the cheers of the crowd, who thought he had made a magnanimous gesture to the Italian driver. His opinion of the Abarth provides the title for the post.

Bryn Pennardd

This is a picture of Penarth Mount in the parish of Cregrina, there's a good aerial photograph here. Like most such sites it's classified as a motte and bailey castle, even when, as here, there is no bailey.

To me it seems just as likely to have been the site of Bryn Pennardd, the home of two of Lewis Glyn Cothi's patrons Bedo Chwith and Gwenllian vz Gwilym. It certainly fits the description of the place in Glyn Cothi's poetry.

Welsh history has been seen too much in terms of the Roman, the Norman and English invaders, perhaps there needs to be a reconsideration of such sites from a more native perspective.

Booze in Fifteenth Century Radnorshire

The feast was symbolic of the bardic world view. The man of power, the foundation stone of the civilised society, gives food and drink to his followers, and they repay his generosity with loyalty. Traditionally this drink was mead, and Lewis Glyn Cothi's poetry shows that this was still being drunk in Fifteenth Century Radnorshire. It is interesting to look at those men who served mead; Phelpod ap Rhys of Brilley was a cyfarwydd - a storyteller, Dafydd ap Rhys of New Radnor owned the Book of Taliesin and was able to discuss its archaic language. Ieuan ap Llywelyn Fychan of Llanfihangel Nant Melan enjoyed reading the tenth century poem Armes Prydain. These men were intellectuals, did Lewis trim his language to suit them, or were they traditionalists in terms of drink as well as literary taste?

The favoured drink of most of Lewis Glyn Cothi's poorer local patrons was ale, especially that produced in the nearby English towns of Ludlow and Weobley. Weobley, the more widely drunk of the two, must have been dark in colour as Lewis describes two dark milk cows, requested as a gift from two ladies of Aberedw, as being darker than the Weobley ale.

While ale and mead were native drinks, wine had to be imported. A common practice was for a local nobleman to buy a shipload of wine direct from the Continent, keeping some for his own consumption and selling the rest from a gwindy or winehouse. Lewis Glyn Cothi was born in the north Carmarthenshire parish of Caio. In the 1390s, Llywelyn ap Gruffudd of that parish was importing 16 tuns of wine per annum from Bordeaux through the port of Carmarthen, 55 bottles for every day of the year!

Less wine may have been drunk in Radnorshire than in some other parts of Wales, probably because of the distance from the sea. Thomas ap Rhys of Llangynllo is described as sending a wagon to Weobley to bring back barrels of ale. He also served bragget - a mixture of beer and honey and an unnamed spirit. His wine was Y Gien - either from the town of Gien on the Loire or Guyenne, the Bordeaux region. Morgan ap Hywel of Llanbister seems to have been an importer of wine. He bought Gwin Borgwin - Burgendy wine, which is dispensed from tunellau and pibau. A tun was a barrel containing 252 gallons, a pipe contained 105 gallons. Sioned vz Rhys of New Radnor had been given orange and claret since birth, she and her husband drank dwsed - doucet, a sweet wine. In Cefnllys Ieuan ap Philip served wine from the pipe and Gwin o Roeg ynys - a wine from a Greek island.

Lewis Glyn Cothi's poetry is full of the names of the wines his patrons served from France, Italy and Spain and even individual villages in France are singled out such as Sant Miliwn - St Emilion. All this goes to show that Fifteenth Century Wales and the districts that later became Radnorshire were far from being rural backwaters - they were part and parcel of a Europe wide economic and cultural order. A bard like Glyn Cothi, visiting the home of Rhys ap Phelpod and his wife Mallt in Llansantffraid yn Elfael, was charged with caring for his patrons mazer-cup, kissing the rim of the sparkling glass six hundred times during the feast. Nice work if you could get it.

The Pound in Your Pocket

Currently for sale on ebay is this £1 note issued by the Rhayader Bank in 1811, starting price is £43.

I can think of one or two Bwgeyites who probably still have a few of these in their wallets waiting to see the light of day.

Rural Housing

The Joseph Rowntree Foundation report into the housing scandal in Rural Wales should come as no surprise to anyone. What is disappointing are the half-hearted recommendations for addressing the crisis.

The public sector needs a revision of the points system to give priority to local working families. In the private sector a two-tier market should be created by ensuring that a substantial percentage of new builds can only be sold and subsequently sold-on to locally educated young people.

Our Friends From the North

Here's an interesting image from John Speed's General Description and Severall Divisions of the Principality of Wales published 1n 1676.

As you can see Gwarthrynion, by which Speed means that part of Radnorshire west of the Ithon and consisting in the main of the parishes of Nantmel, Llanyre, Rhayader and St Harmon, was considered to be a part of the cantref of Arwystli. Arwystli was one of the three cantrefs of Meirionydd, which itself was part of Gwynedd.

Now I don't want to upset any of our good friends raised along the banks of the Bwgey but doesn't this mean that Rhayader folk are actually Gogs?

Radnorshire Arts Update

Work continues apace on Llandrindod's newly discovered inner gateway, we'll post pictures as soon as the installations are installed. Can't wait.

Meanwhile some sad news from St Peter's Church, Evancoyd where a 500 year old painting by the Italian artist Bernadino Luini was stolen from the church. Who even knew that such a treasure was to be found there?

Finally lets mention a challenging new work from that little known Breconshire artist Steffan Powell (right) called "Soggy Soggy Soggy Olé Olé Olé" - a collection of sodden Panama hats collected from this year's Hay Literary Festival field.

UPDATE, I've always been a great supporter of Breconshire artist Steffan Powell, sometimes against my better judgement, so it was with sadness I heard that, since his recent critical success, Steffan seems to have ditched his old friends - admittedly a rather sad and desperate bunch - for a newer, trendier crowd. On a totally unrelated matter it was good to hear that the Liuni has been recovered from a Mid-Wales art gallery.

Ffransis Payne

"Et nous, dont le nom connu des goélands et des cormorans, Fut banni de tous les langages humains, De toutes les bibliothèques, de toutes les cartes terrestres"

Having been educated in 1960s Radnorshire it was an easy thing to relate to the words of the Breton singer Alan Stivell. Our history, too, was untold, buried in dusty manuscripts, replaced by stories that had no place for our heroes, our writers, our songs. My first real inkling of all this came in 1968 in the sedate surroundings of the Ty John Penry bookshop in Swansea's St Helen's Road. Here I came across two recently published volumes by Ffransis G. Payne, Crwydro Sir Faesyfed.

Supposedly part of a travelogue series covering the thirteen Welsh counties, the two Radnorshire volumes contained much more, the broad outlines of a suppressed and forgotten history. Two books written about, rather than for, the people of Radnorshire, folk who were, in Payne's words, unaware that the fragrant names of their parishes and farms sparkled like gems in works that would be an adornment for any literature. Struggling to understand these books with the help of a Spurrell's dictionary, I soon became aware of another truth about Wales in the Sixties. Payne's elegant prose was quite beyond many of my Welsh-speaking friends, the education system had left them practically illiterate in their mother tongue. Clearly the liberation struggles of 1968 needed to be fought far closer to home than many imagined.

Ffransis Payne was born in Kington, Herefordshire in 1901 and it was perhaps the tomb of Elen Gethin and Tomas ap Rhosier Fychan in the local parish church, where he was a choirboy, that awakened his interest in the history of Radnorshire and the border lands. In the 1920s Payne got on his bike and cycled west, working as a farm labourer in order to learn the Welsh language. In 1936 he found a post as an assistant keeper at the National Museum of Wales, coming to wider notice in 1943 when a collection of his essays was hailed as a modern classic of Welsh prose. Despite his lack of academic qualifications, Payne's meticulous scholarship saw him appointed as deputy curator of the Welsh Folk Museum in 1948. In later life Payne did infact study for a degree and had the amusing experience of having to answer a question on one of his own essays in his final examination. In 1969 Payne retired from the Folk Museum and moved back to Radnorshire, he died in 1992.

They were not followed by their betters was Payne's judgement on the old uchelwr class who sustained the civilised society in Radnorshire deep into the Sixteenth Century. As a scholar of Radnorshire and her history a similar judgement can surely be passed on Payne.

Llanbister's Outraged Moralists

A quaint Radnorshire custom from 1898, just click on the cutting to enlarge

Verdun Edwards - Wesh Formula One Driver

Welsh Formula One drivers are few and far between but now, thanks to an illuminating post from his grand-daughter on the TNF site, we can safely add another to the list.

Verdun Edwards was born in Brynna, Glamorganshire in 1916. For the 1958 season Verdun and his business partner Ken Flint purchased one of the B-series Connaught Formula One cars which had been auctioned off when the company was wound-up in October 1957 - I wonder if this car had passed through the hands of one Bernie Ecclestone?

In any case, on April 19th 1958, Edwards drove the Connaught in the Formula One Aintree 200 mile race. The event was won by Stirling Moss, a car's length ahead of Jack Brabham, with Salvadori and Scott-Brown third and fourth.

Edwards had spun out - a spectacular gilhooley in the words of Autosport - at Country Corner and did not finish. Although his race ended somewhat ignominiously with a stalled engine, Edwards had joined, on that Easter Saturday afternoon, the select company of Welshmen who raced in Formula One.

100RMI (update)

It's more than a year since I posted about Innes Ireland's Lotus Eleven with the personalised number plate 100RMI. At the time I rather naively believed that this was an Irish registered car with a Wexford plate. Of course I underestimated Radnorshire's most famous racing motorist .... the plate was, as Ireland later admitted, "entirely fictitious."

Book of the Month

I'm really enjoying dipping into this book at the moment, another excellent offering from that marvellous Herefordshire publishing house Logaston Press. The book has been out for quite a while and I'm afraid I must have dismissed it as one of those fey works about Wales you sometimes get from English authors. Big Mistake. The book is solidly historical and it's 250 plus pages are full of interest and many facts about Radnorshire of which I was blissfully unaware.

A few minor quibbles, but just one for now. The author repeats the story of Elen Gethin of Hergest Court deliberately killing her cousin Sion Hir during an archery contest in Llanddewi Ystradenni churchyard. Like many an author before him Mr Palmer translates Gethin - not a surname of course - as meaning terrible. Now Elen was the subject of many bardic poems, all of which call her Gethin - something they would be unlikely to do if it meant terrible! No the sobriquet Gethin in names like this means olive-skinned, so Elen the olive-skinned, not Elen the terrible.

Keep Chiseling Away

Weird Fact: The most comments I've ever received for a post on this blog concerned sculpture.

No doubt the sculpture vultures of Mid Wales are eagerly awaiting the artistic treasures to be unveiled at Llandrindod's newly discovered, indeed newly invented, inner-gateway. With the promise of bandaged trees, clothes pegs and neon lights on offer, the Victorian group pictured must seem very old hat. It is a work entitled The Death of Tewdric, King of Gwent by the Brecon born sculptor John Evan Thomas (1810-1873)

Now I'd like to say a word or two in favour of this work, and not just because Evan Thomas's mother, Jane Evans, came from the tranquil Radnorshire parish of Aberedw. For this is a revolutionary work, completed in that year of Revolution,1848. It appeared at a time when the very idea of Wales had been expunged from the consciousness of the British state with the abolition of the last surviving Welsh institution, the Court of Great Sessions in 1830. In a legal sense Wales no longer existed.

The work won the prize of 70 guineas at the Eisteddfod at Abergavenny organised by Lady Llanover and it was surely these romantic nationalists who planted the seed of later national revival. So yes, it is a revolutionary work, a work that shouted out in defiance that Wales continued to exist, despite the obvious wishes of the British state. Will the works promised for the inner-gateway have similar fire in their belly? Somehow I doubt it.

Innes Ireland Remembers

Hot from the presses Ed McDonough's collection of Innes Ireland's journalism published by Mercian Manuals. Here's the blurb:

Innes Remembers

Innes Ireland was a successful racing driver, all-round sportsman, patriotic Scot, lover of classic cars and a prolific writer. His books have always been very popular but for many years he was also a contributor to a wide range of automotive magazines including Classic Cars, Road & Track, Autocar, Car Graphic and many others.

His love of motoring and racing began at a very early age in Scotland and over the course of his long career in journalism, he wrote down many of the tales of his childhood and youth, as well as his adventures as a Grand Prix driver for Lotus and exponent of long distance sports car racing. He knew a vast number of people associated with racing and other sports and was given a free hand to recount his stories. Some of the tales are very personal, many reflect on the highs and painful lows of racing, and there are episodes clearly born out of his love of driving good cars.

Motor racing historian Ed Mcdonough has taken the original transcripts of Innes’ articles, with the co-operation of Jean Ireland, and edited them into this collection of tales, adding many photographs not previously published. They demonstrate the depth of Ireland’s passions and his skill as a writer and story teller.

Price: £34.95

Now where have I seen that cover photo before?

Evenjobb

Here's a little site about the Radnorshire hamlet of Evanjobb. Now why the author should confuse Evanjobb and Evancoed I don't know; while the origin of the name he dismisses, seems perfectly acceptable to me. Richard Morgan's scholarly study of Radnorshire placenames gives examples of Emynghop from 1304 and Emyngehope from 1328. By 1544 a process of Cymricisation gives Evyngeopp and by 1612 it is Evengeobbe. It also appears that the present-day villagers are most annoyed about a welsh version, Einsiob, appearing on local roadsigns.

One fact that the author fails to note in his brief historical sketch is that during the sixteenth century Hugh Myles of Evenjobb was the owner of the Book of Taliesin, one of the most important sources for Welsh, if not World literature. By the way the bard Lewis Glyn Cothi had seen the manuscript at nearby Harpton a hundred years before it came into Hugh Myles' possession, see here.

I'm afraid, like it or not, as soon as you begin to study Radnorshire's history in any depth, its essential Welshness comes bursting through the thin veneer of Anglicization.

Scandal

In my review of the Guto'r Glyn biography, I made the point that bardic poetry can provide us with colourful insights that are often missing from the official records of the period. Of course these records can occasionally provide colour, as for example in E J L Cole's article Clandestine Marriages, The Awful Evidence From A Consistory Court, which appeared in the Radnorshire Society Transactions for 1976.

The Consistory Court was a church court which exercised authority in matters such as marriage and adultery, punishments meted out were based on humiliation, often involving ritual whippings around the local church. Mr Cole quotes some examples from the Hereford diocese involving people from what would become Radnorshire, I believe a couple of these individuals are also mentioned in the Bardic poetry of the period.

Firstly we have Res ap Phelpot of Whitney, a bachelor who associated with a married woman called Joan in Staunton, and who appeared before the court in 1469. There has to be a good chance that this is Rhys ap Phelpod, the subject of this bardic poem by Lewis Glyn Cothi. Rhys appeared before the court claiming to have married Joan in Beguildy but before the matter could be proved, both had left the diocese. Secondly in Eardisland on 26th April 1475, an Agnes Holl of Old Radnor was accused of contracting a secret marriage in Bryngwyn. There has to be a chance that this is Elis Holl, another of Lewis's patrons, see here.

Up For The Cup!

OK, it's 1927 and Cardiff City have just won the FA Cup. So where better to parade the trophy than that home of the Bwgyites ...... Rhaeadr Gwy! Um ... we are sure that's not the Aspidistra Cup aren't we?

Book of the Month

Well this certainly isn't going to trouble the bestsellers list but on a number of counts it qualifies as my Book of the Month.

Firstly it's published, and very elegantly published, by Y Lolfa. The Ceredigion firm have been proving for decades that you can survive without the government handouts that so emasculate much of the Welsh publishing world. Oh and it is actually printed in Wales unlike many of the books published with tax payers money. Moving on we find that the author E A Rees is a professor of East European history in Florence, it's interesting how some of the most exciting works on Welsh history are being written by authors from outside the University of Wales.

The book itself is an attempt to write a biography of the fifteenth century bard and soldier Guto'r Glyn, based on the poet's own work and that of his contemporaries. As more and more bardic poetry is published in accessible editions and as the works of that amateur genealogist, Peter Bartram, makes sense of the family connections of the numerous aps and ferchs, we are surely going to see more books that use this astonishing source material to illuminate the past. The book is surely a harbinger of things to come. How fortunate Radnorshire is to have a wealth of such bardic material just waiting to be exploited by the historians of the future.

Does the book succeed as biography? I think it does. It may lack the fluidity of a modern work but the use of incisive poetry means that we get a far better insight into the character of Guto, his contemporaries and the society in which they lived, than would be available from the dry civil records available to traditional historians of the period. Having read Professor Rees's previous book about Welsh Rebels and Outlaws, I was pleased to see that this time he has opted for a comprehensive index to his work.

A reviewer is surely allowed to point out one mistake. The author says that no trace of the work of the bard Ieuan Gyfanedd survived but infact one poem did come down to us, a praise poem to Philip ap Rhys of St Harmon, I've attempted a translation here. Doubtless Rees was confused by the Dictionary of Welsh Biography's consigning of this poet to the wrong century! Professor Rees also deprives us of one of our local bards, Sion ap Phelpod of Brilley. He argues convincingly that Sion's poem to Hywel Dafi was infact written by Guto.

Sir Charles Edwards, A Radnorian Chief Whip

The Ancestry sites seem to be in dispute with the banks over direct debits, all of which means that I can't use them at the moment. This is all a bit frustrating, although something of a money saver. Take Sir Charles Edwards for example, who knew that this Chief Whip and long-serving MP for Bedwellty was born and raised in the Radnorshire parish of Llangynllo. It would be interesting to check out his background in the various censuses, so if anyone does have an Ancestry account and wants to look him up, please post your findings in the comments here.

Radnorshire Bardic Poems, 45

Tomas ap Rhosier Fychan of Hergest was killed at the Battle of Banbury in 1469, this translation of an elegy by Lewis Glyn Cothi confirms how his wife Elen Gethin brought his body back home from the battlefield, the couples' tomb can still be seen in Kington parish church. The illustration shows Lewis Glyn Cothi's drawing of Tomas ap Rhosier's coat of arms, he belonged to the Wye valley tribe of Drymbenog, originating it seems from Cwrt Llechryd in the Radnorshire parish of Llanelwedd.






No. 124, Elegy for Tomas ap Rhosier Fychan of Hergest

The most powerful field in Christendom,
And through defection it was lost;
In Banbury vengeance was taken
Upon fair Wales, a heavy payment.
There, were heard in a single hour
The cries of battle between great spearmen:
Some "Herbert!" some "Our Edward!"
"The Earl of Warwick!" others "Harry!"
Under the banner of the lord of Herast
There was slashing and bruising and grappling;
Tomas between the two maddened ranks,
The son of Rhosier with the bruising spear,
An Arthur in his breastplate,
Killed before the host of Camlan,
And he, himself, and not lightly,
With both hands avenged them.
Tomas was killed like Jesus,
He was killed when at the head of his host.
Tomas, in his white breastplate,
More than repaid the enemy.
If he were fighting fist to fist with
The three most singularly privileged in Banbury,
He did what nine might do,
After the charge, in the hand to hand,
He was not had, where the others were killed
In single combat with a man and another,
And if he were, where there were two
In single combat, he had the best of it.

Loud the battle with our enemy
In cruel Banbury, atop a hill,
Two men went, neither was spared,
An earl of Gwent, another of Kington.
The grandson of Moreiddig
Had many virtues and few vices,
He never allowed, in his manor
Through his exertions, any great tax,
Mostly they were avoided,
And all of them were shared in wine.
A wonder for the books of knowledge,
No-one lives who blames him.

Elen Gethin has been weeping
Drips of dew in drops of rain,
And after the brave weeping
She brought the dead one back,
She has made this feast
In Herast for his funeral.
Afterwards there shall awaken,
Three like St George or St Derfel.
Three with the skill to avenge her,
The true God will give me payment.
Master Watcyn, son of a sweet shoot,
Master Rhisiart and Master Rhosier.
The intention of the threes sons of Constantine
to be strong and to topple oppression,
These now will avenge their father
Upon England before sleep enters the eye,
And they before summer ends
Will share a field taken form the strongest,
Upon two new days, as one,
That Mary's son may grant them.
In the spot where he was killed
God will joust for Tomas.
The image of Mary will avenge him,
God, too, may take vengeance.

A Forgotten War

The Sixties are supposed to have been a time of khaftans and flower power, but in Radnorshire the whiff of high explosives impacted more on the senses than cannabis.

Nowadays the bombing campaign against the Elan Valley pipeline has been largely forgotten or dismissed as part of the comic-book saga of the Free Wales Army. In reality it was a serious business, as this photograph of the results of an attack at West Hagley in 1968 shows. This after all was the main water supply to England's second city and followed less successful bombings within Radnorshire itself, at Nantmel and Crossgates.

Reading through old newspaper reports it comes as something of a surprise to discover that two convicted Welsh bombers were suspected of having learnt how to assembly their devices at a farm in Llandegle. Was Llandegle really such a hot bed of physical force nationalism, or was this an example of the activities of that familiar figure on the Sixties scene, the agent provocateur?

UPDATE

An earlier threat to the pipeline came during the IRA's futile mainland campaign of 1939. In January of that year the Birmingham Evening Dispatch received the following message from the bombers:

"WARNING: London, Manchester and Liverpool; Battersea, Rhyadder and Coventry are next, and there will be no mistakes next time."

Over 300 explosions occurred during the campaign but thankfully the Bwgyites remained untouched, perhaps the IRA's inability to spell the name of the town meant they failed to find it on the map.

Are They Mad?

According to the Guardian, Llandrindod Wells was recently named the best place to party in the whole of Britain. OK I know you don't believe me but here's the link. That must rate right-up alongside Llanwrtyd's bog-snorkelling championship being voted in the ten best events in the world. Any chance of Rhayader being the next European Capital of Culture?

Radnorshire Bardic Poems, 44

This is a translation of a run of the mill praise poem by Lewis Glyn Cothi addressed to Bedo Chwith and his wife Gwenllian vz Gwilym of Bryn Pennardd, Cregrina. Bedo belonged to that sub-clan of the tribe of Rhys ap Tewdwr descended from Meilyr O Ddiserth. The poem was probably composed for a feast to celebrate David, the patron saint of Cregrina, it exhibits the usual bardic obsession with bonedd (descent) and the obligations (perchentyaeth) that this placed on the chieftain towards the wider community.

No 151, Praise of Bedo Chwith and Gwenllian vz Gwilym

The stag like Ifor Hael,
A great spending in Elfael,
Oh my, is Bedo Chwith
Not the shoot of the wheat?
He is one growth with Dafydd,
He'll be one mettle with Hywel,
One foundation, one body with Meilyr,
One look, one height, one long spear,
One dart with Ricart and Rhys,
One face throughout the fair island.

He has, as he pours mead,
Two names, they are not the same,
By Mary, he is Maredudd,
But he's Bedo to the world.
John the Baptist had
Two names for a single man:
He was John and Ioannes,
Names for a host that he benefited
A famous man lives in Cregrina,
And there he bears two good names.

Bedo it is who labours my hand,
A long life to him,
On it is placed from one share,
Three ploughs of silver,
And behind them the men sow,
A swarm of golden seed.
Golden reals were sown,
On the chosen men of fair Arthur.
The bright gold of Cologne,
Was given to Holy Mary.
Many men have placed fine gold
Upon the great image of Dublin;
And it is an honour for a poet
To be gilded by some man.
The grandson of Meilyr, with yellow gold,
Has gilded the fists of many folk.
His gift of gold from his right hand,
Gilded me at the feast of Dewi.
Gwenllian, on Dewi's feast night,
Gives food to the world, she shares
Tomorrow, the day after, the day after that,
Three days hence, more and more shalll come.
The hand of Gwilym ap Llywelyn,
Who was her father, did the same;
The hand of the girl from Malläen
Grinds out gold in fair Elafel.
The same girl who shares the mead
Is of an exalted line from Gwynedd;
Sir Gruffydd Llwyd was the lion,
Truly he was gilded;
Truly she with the great bearing
Of his hand, signals the feast.

She and Bedo, throughout the world,
Have been one word for some time.
Bedo and she are generous,
They are not enfeebled by meanness.
He has had a good share of wealth,
She is good, He is wise,
For him, good, for her two lives,
An age for her, a lifetime for him,
May sickness never visit her,
Let age come to his brow.

Holidays From Hell

Even in the pre-digital age bad publicity travelled fast, as this cutting from an 1873 New Zealand newspaper shows.

Nothing in the Papers

With more and more newspaper archives being digitalised, a few happy minutes can be passed searching out long-forgotten stories from Radnorshire's past.

Who, except perhaps in Ireland, now remembers this once prominent politician and his pride in his Llanbister forebears.

Has there ever been a more newsworthy road traffic accident on a Radnorshire road than that which occurred on August 8th 1906 when the Bishop of London's car was in collision with that of Prince Arthur, the Duke of Connaught.

Finally, does anyone still recall the heroic cycle ride of Miss Constance Clifton-Mogg of Brynwern Hall, through the great storm of 4th May 1904 - and yes they did have storms in pre-global warming days. Hearing an unusual noise, and with the aid of field glasses, Miss Mogg saw that the Builth-Newbridge railway line had been been swept away by a landslip. Mounting her bicycle Constance rode through the tempest and arrived at Newbridge station just as the Builth train was about to leave. A disaster was averted and the grateful directors of the Cambrian Railway presented the gallant lady with a silver tray. A Lady's Promptitude, the headline in the paper declared. Promptitude, now there's a word you're unlikely to read on the front page of the Daily Bugle any time soon.

An Early Sporting Motorist from Mid Wales

We mentioned Maud Manville a few posts below, but another Welsh competitor who competed on the Continent in the 1906 six day Herkomer Cup was Captain David Hughes Morgan of Talgarth in Breconshire. Hughes Morgan seems to have been a prominent pioneer in the early days of Welsh motor sport, you can check out a couple of his hillclimbing successes here. In 1907 he was competing against S F Edge in Cardiff Motor Club's first Caerphilly hillclimb event and in 1909 his Humber was leading the way in the Pendine beach races.

Does anyone know if Hughes Morgan later found fame as Sir David Hughes Morgan, publisher of the Western Mail and Echo? Although, unfortunately, not enough fame to find a place in the chapel obsessed pages of the Dictionary of Welsh Biography.

Trials and Tribulations of a Blogger

There's no point in regurgitating stuff that's readily available elsewhere on the web, which is why I try to go back to original sources in order to find fresh information for the posts on this blog.

Take Esme Stewart for example, there was a brief reference in Boddy's Brooklands book but otherwise nothing at all, even on the forums which occasionally interest themselves in motor sport's dim and distant past.

Esme's claim to fame was that in 1910 she attempted to break Felice Nazarro's 1908 Brooklands lap of 121.64 mph driving the same car in which he set the record, the frightening 18 litre Fiat Mephistopholes (see photo). Esme failed, but, hey, can you imagine driving such a beast at over 100 mph on the bumpy Brooklands banking?

Anyway reference to various online public records and newspaper archives soon identified that she was born in Scotland in 1887 and that she later married car manufacturer Noel Macklin, father of the similarly named 1950s racer and Stirling Moss team-mate. It turned out that Esme divorced Mr Macklin and that young Noel was the product of a second marriage.

How frustrating then to discover a copy of the November 1994 edition of The Automobile advertised on Ebay promising an in-depth article on Miss Stewart. There it was, my original research and "discovery" turned out to be common knowledge, although knowledge that hadn't, at the time, made it on to the internet.

Bardic Sign Language

There's plenty of evidence to show that the old Welsh bards had a sign language. No doubt this was useful in communicating information in the crowded great halls and taverns the bards frequented, it would have fitted in well with the esoteric nature of much of bardic learning.

Sion Ceri, the sixteenth century bard who operated a good deal in and around Radnorshire, has a poem in which he describes this bardic sign language. Rather than finger signing it is mainly based on touching various parts of the face and upper body. Here are a few examples:

A - thumb up, C - cheek, E - the eye, F - the wrist, FF - two fingers on the wrist, O - forehead T - the nose, Y - the elbow