Is any sick? The Man of Ross relieves.
Prescribes, attends, the med"cine makes and gives.
Is there a variance? Enter but his door.
Balked are the courts and contest is no more....
Thrice happy man! enabled to pursue What all so wish, but want the power to do!
Oh say what sums that generous hand supply, What mines to swell that boundless charity?
Of debts and taxes, wife and children, clear.
That man possessed--five hundred pounds a year!"
[Ill.u.s.tration: MARKET PLACE, ROSS.]
[Ill.u.s.tration: ROSS CHURCH.]
[Ill.u.s.tration: THE TREES IN ROSS CHURCH.]
It is not often that a man can do so much to benefit his townsfolk out of the modest income of $2500 a year; and not only Pope, but Coleridge also, has found this a theme for verse. The house in which the "Man of Ross" lived is on the left-hand side of the market-place, and still stands, though much changed. It is now a drug-store and a dwelling. The floors and panelling of several of the chambers are of oak, while a quaint opening leads to a narrow corridor and into a small room, which tradition says was his bedroom, where he endured his last and only illness, and died. The bedroom looks out upon his garden, divided like the house, one-half being converted into a bowling-green. The surrounding walls are overrun with vines and bordered by pear trees. On the other side of the market-place is the town-hall, standing on an eminence and facing the princ.i.p.al street, which comes up from the river-bank. This hall is somewhat dilapidated, though still in daily use, and is supported on crumbling pillars of red sandstone. Ross is chiefly built upon the slope of a hill, terminating in a plateau, one side of which the Wye, flowing through a horseshoe bend, has scarped out into a river-cliff. Upon this plateau stands the little Ross Church with its tall spire, a striking building in a singularly fortunate situation.
The churchyard, with an adjoining public garden called the Prospect, extends to the brow of the cliff. The church is cruciform, and its spire the landmark for the surrounding country. It was built in the fourteenth century, but is without architectural features. The "Man of Ross" rests within its walls, buried near the altar under a blue slab. His memory is the most cherished remembrance of Ross, and is mellowed as the ages pa.s.s. His fireside chair stands in the chancel, and they also show a book containing his autograph. A tablet to his memory is inserted in the wall, erected by a distant relative, Lady Betty Dupplin, for it is said, as is usually the case, that his good deeds excited more enthusiasm in strangers than among the people whom he benefited. Within the church, in front of a window, two trees are growing, another indirect and posthumous memorial of the "Man of Ross." They appeared about fifty years ago, and the story is that a rector of the parish had cut down a tree on the outside of the wall which the "Man of Ross" had originally planted, whereupon these suckers made their appearance within the building and a.s.serted the vitality of the parent tree. They shot up against the seat which is said to have been his favorite one, and though at first objected to, the church-wardens bowed to the inevitable, and they are now among the most prized relics within the church. The public garden (the Prospect) adjoining the churchyard was another benefaction of the "Man of Ross," and with some private houses and a hotel it crowns the summit of the plateau. Here the hand of the "Man of Ross" again appears in a row of n.o.ble elms around the churchyard which he is said to have planted, some of them of great size. The view from the Prospect, however, is the town"s chief present glory. It stands on the brink of the river-cliff, with the Wye sweeping at its feet around the apex of the long horseshoe curve. Within the curve is the gra.s.sy Oak Meadow dotted with old trees. On either hand are meadows and cornfields, with bits of wood, and the Welsh hills rise in the distance.
GOODRICH CASTLE AND SYMOND"S YAT.
[Ill.u.s.tration: RUINS OF GOODRICH CASTLE.]
[Ill.u.s.tration: A BEND OF THE RIVER WYE.]
The Wye flows on through its picturesque glen towards Monmouth, the water bubbling with a strong current. A raised causeway carries the road to Monmouth over the meadows. On the right hand are the ruins of Wilton Castle, built in Stephen"s reign, and burned in the Civil War. Tourists go by small boats floated on the current down the Wye, and the boats are hauled back on donkey-carts, little trains of them being seen creeping along the Monmouth road. From Ross to Monmouth the river flows through a region of rolling hills, with abrupt declivities where the rapid stream has scarped the margin into cliffs and ridges. The valley narrows, and the very crooked river flows through bewitching scenery until by another great horseshoe bend it winds around the ruins of Goodrich Castle, reared upon a wooded cliff, with Goodrich Court near by. The latter is a modern imitation of a mediaeval dwelling, constructed according to the erratic whims of a recent owner. This Court once contained the finest collection of ancient armor in England, but most of it has been transferred to the South Kensington Museum. Goodrich Castle was once a formidable fortress, and it dates from the reign of Stephen. Here it was that in the days of Edward the Confessor, "entrenched in a stockade of wood, G.o.deric de Winchcomb held the ford" over the Wye, and gave the place his name. It grew in strength until the Civil War, when Sir Richard Lingen held it for the king. This was a memorable contest, lasting six weeks, during which the besiegers belabored it with the best battering-cannon they could procure, and used up eighty barrels of gunpowder voted by Parliament for the purpose. Then the defenders demanded a parley, but the a.s.sailants, angry at being so long baulked of their prey, insisted upon unconditional surrender. Afterwards the castle was demolished, but the fine old keep remains in good preservation, commanding a grand view over the winding valley of the Wye and to the Forest of Dean in one direction and the Malvern Hills in another. The ruins are of a quadrangular fortress, and within the courtyard Wordsworth once met the child whose prattle suggested his familiar poem, "We are Seven." Little now remains of Goodrich Priory, but the parish church of the village can be seen afar off, and contains a chalice presented by Dean Swift, whose grandfather, Thomas Swift, was once its rector.
[Ill.u.s.tration: IN SYMOND"S YAT.]
Below Goodrich this wayward river makes an enormous loop, wherein it goes wandering about for eight miles and accomplishes just one mile"s distance. Here it becomes a boundary between the two Bickner villages--Welsh Bickner and English Bickner. To the eastward is the Forest of Dean, covering over twenty-six thousand acres, and including extensive coal-pits and iron-works, the smoke from the latter overhanging the valley. The river-channel is dug deeply into the limestone rocks, whose fissured and ivy-clad cliffs rise high above the water, varied by occasional green meadows, where cattle are feeding. The river bends sharply to the westward past the crags at Coldwell, and then doubles back upon its former course. This second bend is around a high limestone plateau which is the most singular feature of the beautiful glen. The river sweeps in an elongated loop of about five miles, and returns to within eighteen hundred feet of its former channel, and the plateau rises six hundred feet to the apex of the headland that mounts guard over the grand curve--the famous Symond"s Yat. On the top are the remains of an ancient British fort, and rocks, woods, fields, and meadows slope down to the river on almost every side, making a bewitching scene. It was here that the Northman Vikings in 911 fortified themselves after they landed on the Severn and penetrated through the Forest of Dean. They were led by Eric in quest of plunder, and captured a bishop, who was afterwards ransomed for two hundred dollars. Their foray roused the people, who besieged the Vikings, forming a square encampment which commanded their fortification, and remains of which are still visible. They drove the Vikings out with their hail of arrows, and punished them so terribly that the defile down which they fled is still known as "The Slaughter." The remnant who escaped afterwards surrendered on condition of being allowed to quit the country, and their experience had such wholesome influence that no Vikings came that way afterwards.
The Wye next bends around two bold limestone hills known as the Great and the Little Doward, each surmounted by ancient encampments, where arrowheads and other relics, not to forget the bones of a giant, have been found. In fact, bones seem to be a prolific product of this region, for the "bone-caves" of the Dowards produce the relics of many animals long vanished from the kingdom, and also disclose rude weapons of flint, showing that the primitive races of men were here with them. Beds of stalagmites, sand, and gravel covered these relics, deposited by an ancient stream which geologists say flowed three hundred feet above the present bed of the Wye. Then we come to the richly-wooded deer-park of the Leys with its exquisite views, and here the wildly romantic scenery is gradually subdued into a more open valley and a straighter stream as the Wye flows on towards Monmouth. The parts of the river just described are not more renowned for their beauty, though considered the finest in England, than for their salmon, and we are told that three men with a net have been known to catch a ton of salmon in a day, while the fishery-rights are let at over $100,000 annually.
MONMOUTH.
The beautiful valley, with its picturesque scenery, expands somewhat as the Wye approaches its junction with the river Monnow and flows through a succession of green meadows. Here, between the two rivers on a low spur, a prolongation of their bordering hills, stands Monmouth, its ancient suburbs spreading across the Monnow. From the market-place, the chief street of the town leads down to these suburbs, crossing over an old-time bridge. The town has its church and the ruins of a priory, while perched on a cliff overlooking the Monnow is its castle, displaying rather extensive but not very attractive remains. John of Monmouth is said to have built this castle in the reign of Henry III.
Here also lived at one time John of Gaunt and his son, Harry Hereford, who afterwards became Henry IV., and the latter"s son, Harry Monmouth, was born in this old castle, growing up to become the wild "Prince Hal,"
and afterwards the victor at Agincourt. They still show a narrow window, with remains of tracery, as marking the room in which he first saw the light. Thus has "Prince Hal" become the patron of Monmouth, and his statue stands in front of the town-hall, representing the king in full armor, and inscribed, "Henry V., born at Monmouth August 9, 1387," but it is not regarded as remarkable for its artistic finish. The remains of the old priory are utilized for a school. It was founded by the Benedictines in the reign of Henry I., and in it lived Geoffrey of Monmouth, a familiar author in days when books were few. He was Bishop of St. Asaph"s in the year 1152, and wrote his _History of the Britons_, wherein he combined all the fables of the time so ingeniously with the truth that they became alike history. Out of his imagination grew the tale of the "Round Table" and its knights.
[Ill.u.s.tration: MONMOUTH BRIDGE.]
[Ill.u.s.tration: GATE ON MONMOUTH BRIDGE.]
Upon the old bridge crossing the Monnow stands an ancient gate-house, constructed in the style that prevailed in the thirteenth century, but it is doubtful if this was a military work, its probable use being the collection of tolls on the produce brought into the town. It is pierced with postern arches for the foot-pa.s.sengers, and still retains the place for its portcullis. All around the Monmouth market-place are the old houses where the celebrated Monmouth caps were made that were so popular in old times, and of which Fluellen spoke when he told Henry V., "If Your Majesty is remembered of it, the Welshmen did good service in a garden where leeks did grow, wearing leeks in their Monmouth caps."
Monmouth is not a large town, having but six thousand inhabitants, but it takes a mayor, four aldermen, two bailiffs, and twelve councillors to govern them, and its ma.s.sive county-jail is a solid warning to all evil-doers. From the summit of the lofty Kymin Hill, rising seven hundred feet on the eastern side of the town, there is a grand panorama over the valley of the Wye. This hill is surmounted by a pavilion and temple, built in 1800 to record the naval victories of England in the American wars. Farther down the valley was the home of the late Lord Raglan, and here are the ruins of Raglan Castle, built in the fifteenth century. For ten weeks in the Civil War the venerable Marquis of Worcester held this castle against Fairfax"s siege, but the redoubtable old hero, who was aged eighty-four, ultimately had to surrender.
[Ill.u.s.tration: RAGLAN CASTLE.]
TINTERN ABBEY AND CHEPSTOW CASTLE.
The Wye at Monmouth also receives the Trothy River, and the confluence of the three valleys makes a comparatively open basin, which, however, again narrows into another romantic glen a short distance below the town. Wild woods border the steep hills, and the Wye flows through the western border of the Forest of Dean, an occasional village attesting the mineral wealth by its blackened chimneys. Here, below Redbrook, was the home of Admiral Rooke, who captured Gibraltar in 1704, and farther down are the ruins of the castle of St. Briard, built in the days of Henry I. to check Welsh forays. Here lived the lord warden of the Forest of Dean, and for three centuries every Whit-Sunday they held the annual "scramble" in the church. It appears that a tax of one penny was levied on every person who pastured his cattle on the common, and the amount thus raised was expended for bread and cheese. The church was crowded, and the clerk standing in the gallery threw out the edibles to the struggling congregation below. The railway closely hugs the swiftly-flowing river in its steep and narrow glen as we pa.s.s Offa"s d.y.k.e and Chair and the Moravian village of Brockweir. Here the line of fortifications crossed the valley which the king of Mercia constructed to protect his dominions. The valley then slightly expands, and the green sward is dotted by the houses of the long and scattered village of Tintern Parva. The river sharply bends, and in the glen on the western side stand the ruins of the far-famed Tintern Abbey in the green meadows at the brink of the Wye. The spot is well chosen, for nowhere along this celebrated river has Nature indicated a better place for quiet, heavenly meditation not un-mixed with earthly comforts.
[Ill.u.s.tration: TINTERN ABBEY.]
Walter de Clare founded Tintern Abbey in 1131 for the Cistercian monks, and dedicated it to St. Mary. It was built upon an ancient battlefield where a Christian prince of Glamorgan had been slain by the heathen, but of the buildings erected by De Clare none now exist, the present remains being of later date, and the abbey church that is now in ruin was erected by Roger BiG.o.d, Duke of Norfolk. It is a magnificent relic of the Decorated period. The vaulted roof and central tower are gone, but the arches which supported the latter remain. The row of columns on the northern side of the nave have fallen, with the clerestory above them, but the remainder of the structure has suffered little damage. The western front, with its n.o.ble window and exquisite tracery, is very fine. Ivy and ferns overrun the walls and form a coping, while green sward has replaced the pavement, so that it would be difficult to imagine a more enchanting ruin, and as such Tintern is renowned the world over. Lord Houghton has written:
"The men who called their pa.s.sion piety, And wrecked this n.o.ble argosy of faith,-- They little thought how beauteous could be death, How fair the face of time"s aye-deepening sea, Nor arms that desolate, nor years that flee, Nor hearts that fail, can utterly deflower This gra.s.sy floor of sacramental power Where we now stand communicants."
Tintern Abbey is two hundred and twenty-eight feet long. It had no triforium, and the clerestory windows are rather large. The great east window was even more elaborate than the western, but all of it has fallen excepting the central mullion and the stronger portion of the tracery which branches out on either side from it. There yet remain in the building a few tiles with heraldic emblems, some broken monuments, and some heaps of choice carvings, shattered as they fell, but afterwards collected and piled against the walls. The Duke of Beaufort, to whose estate it belongs, has done everything possible to arrest decay, and all is kept in perfect order. A door leads out of the southern transept to a few fragments of buildings in the fields on that side, but most of the convent was on the northern side, where its ruins surround a gra.s.s-grown quadrangle. A cloister once ran around it; on the eastern side is the chapter-house, with the dormitory above, and on the western side the remains of the abbot"s lodgings and the guest-chambers have been converted into cottages. The refectory and guest-hall are to the northward, with ruins of the octagonal columns that supported the roof. Such is this magnificent relic of the Cistercians, and yet it is but one of seventy-six abbeys that they possessed before Henry VIII.
dissolved them. From the high-road down the valley of the Wye, which skirts the green meadows along its southern face, is the best view of the abbey, and the ruddy gray stone ruins, with the gra.s.sy fields and the background of wooded hills beyond the broad river, make up a picture that cannot easily be forgotten. Yet Tintern is most beautiful of all when the full moon rising over the eastern hills pours a flood of light through the broken east window to the place where once stood the high altar.
The valley of the Wye again broadens, and the river flows in graceful curves through the meadows, guarded on either hand by cliffs and woods.
The river is here a tidal-stream, having a rise of twelve feet, so that it is now a strong current, flowing full and swift between gra.s.sy banks, and anon is a shrunken creek, fringed by broad borders of mud. The railway on the eastern bank runs over the meadows and through occasional tunnels in the spurs of the cliffs. The high-road climbs the hill on the western bank, known as the Wynecliff, from the top of which there is a grand view over the valley and to the southward towards and beyond Chepstow. This cliff rises nine hundred feet above the river, and is the great monarch of a realm of crags that poke up their heads in all directions. Across the Wye, on a tongue of land projecting into the stream, Sir John Wyntour in the Civil War, with one hundred and eighty Royalists, hastily built a fort to command the river. Before their intrenchments were complete the enemy in superior force attacked and completely routed them; but twenty escaped, and Wyntour, cutting his way through the a.s.sailants" lines, took refuge in the beetling crags behind known as the Tidenham Rocks. The cavalry pursued him, when he forced his horse down a part somewhat less precipitous than the rest, reached the bank in safety, and escaped by swimming his horse over the river. The precipice is still known as Wyntour"s Leap. Below, the Wye flows through Chepstow, with iron bridges spanning it to carry the road and railway across. The main part of the town on the western part is built upon a slope that in places descends somewhat rapidly to the river. Parts of the old walls are still preserved, strengthened at intervals by round towers. Chepstow has its ruined church, once a priory, within which Henry Marten the regicide was buried after twenty years" imprisonment in the castle.
[Ill.u.s.tration: CHEPSTOW CASTLE.]
The great point of interest is Chepstow Castle, built here to command the Wye, and standing in a fine situation on the edge of the river in a naturally fortified position. Upon the land-side deep trenches and outworks protect it, while a gra.s.sy meadow intervenes between its gateway and the Wye, that here makes a sharp curve. To get the castle in between the crags and the river, it was constructed upon a long and narrow plan, and is divided into four courts. The main entrance on the eastern side is through a ponderous gateway flanked by solid towers and with curiously-constructed ancient wooden doors. Entering the court, there is a ma.s.sive tower on the left hand with an exterior staircase turret, while on the right the custodian lives in a group of comparatively modern buildings, beneath which is a vaulted chamber communicating with the river. Within this tower, whose walls are of great thickness, Henry Marten was imprisoned. He was one of the court that tried King Charles, and his signature is upon the king"s death-warrant. He was a spendthrift, and afterwards had a quarrel with Cromwell, who denounced him as an unbeliever, and even as a buffoon.
When Charles II. made the proclamation of amnesty, Marten surrendered, but he was tried and condemned to death. He plead that he came in under the proffer of mercy, and the sentence was commuted to a life imprisonment; and after a short confinement in the Tower of London he was removed to Chepstow, where he died twenty years later, in 1680.
Pa.s.sing into the smaller second court, for the rocks contract it, there is a strong tower protecting its entrance, and at the upper end are the ruins of the great hall, relics of the fourteenth century. Two or three windows, a door, and part of an arcade remain, but roof and floor are gone. A still smaller court lies beyond, at the upper end of which is a gateway defended by a moat, beyond which is the western gate and court of the castle, so that this last enclosure forms a kind of barbican.
Chepstow was elaborately defended, and its only vulnerable points were from the meadows on the east and the higher ground to the west; but before the days of artillery it was regarded as impregnable, and excellently performed its duty as a check upon the Welsh. Fitzosbern, Earl of Hereford, built the older parts in the eleventh century, but the most of Chepstow dates from that great epoch of castle-building on the Welsh border, the reign of Edward I. We are told that the second Fitzosbern was attainted and his estates forfeited, but that the king one Easter graciously sent to him in prison his royal robes. The earl so disdained the favor that he burned them, which made the king so angry that he said, "Certainly this is a very proud man who hath thus abused me, but, by the brightness of G.o.d, he shall never come out of prison so long as I live." Whereupon, says Dugdale, who tells the tale, he remained a prisoner until he died. Chepstow was then bestowed upon the De Clares, who founded Tintern Abbey, and it afterwards pa.s.sed by marriage to the BiG.o.d family. Chepstow in the Civil War was held for the king, and surrendered to the Parliamentary troops. Soon afterwards it was surprised at the western gate and retaken. Cromwell then besieged it, but, the siege proving protracted, he left Colonel Ewer in charge.
The Royalist garrison of about one hundred and sixty men were reduced to great extremity and tried to escape by a boat, but in this they were disappointed, as one of the besiegers, watching his opportunity, swam across the Wye with a knife in his teeth and cut the boat adrift. Then the castle was a.s.saulted and taken, and the commander and most of the garrison slain. Parliament gave it to Cromwell, but after the Restoration it was returned to the heirs of the Marquis of Worcester, its owner, and it still belongs to his descendant, the Duke of Beaufort.
The neighborhood of Chepstow has many pleasant villas in beautiful sites, and the broadening Wye flows a short distance beyond through the meadow-land, and then debouches into the estuary of the Severn.
THE GOLDEN VALLEY.
[Ill.u.s.tration: PONTRILAS COURT.]
[Ill.u.s.tration: THE SCYRRID VAWR.]
Still journeying westward beyond the beautiful valley of the Wye, we will ascend its tributary, the Monnow, to its sources in the Black Mountains on the borders of Wales. We skirted along the northern side of these mountains with the Wye, while the Monnow takes us fairly into them. The little river Dore is one of the head-waters of the Monnow, and it flows through the picturesque region known as the Golden Valley, just on the edge of Brecon, where the trout-fishing is as attractive as the scenery. All its streams rise upon the flanks of the Black Mountains, and the village of Pontrilas is its railway-station at the entrance to the valley. This village is devoted to the manufacture of naphtha, for which purpose mules bring wood from the neighboring forests, and it was once honored with the presence of a hotel. This was its princ.i.p.al mansion, Pontrilas Court, but it has long since been converted into a private residence. This court is a characteristic Elizabethan mansion, standing in a beautiful garden almost smothered in foliage and running vines. About a mile up the valley is the pretty village of Ewias Harold, with its church on one sloping bank of the little river and its castle on the other. Within the church alongside the chancel there is a rec.u.mbent female figure holding a casket in its hands. The tomb upon which it is placed was some time ago opened, but nothing was found within excepting a case containing a human heart. The monument probably commemorates an unknown benefactress whose corpse lies elsewhere, but who ordered her heart sent to the spot she loved best. The castle, standing on an eminence, was once a strong fortress, and tradition says it was built by Harold before he was king, but it does not occupy a prominent place in history. Ascending a hill to the northward, a view is obtained over the valleys of the three picturesque streams--the Dore, Dulas, and Monnow--that afterwards unite their waters; and, proceeding up the Dore, we come to the village of Abbey Dore, with the roofless ruins of its abbey, a part of which is utilized for the parish church, though scarcely anything is now left beyond fragments of the conventual buildings. This was a Cistercian monastery founded by Robert of Ewias in the reign of Henry I. We are now in the heart of the Golden Valley, which seems to be excavated out of a plateau with long, terrace-like hills bounding it on either hand, their lower parts rich in verdure, while their summits are dark and generally bare. Every available part of the lower surface is thoroughly cultivated, its hedgerows and copses giving variety to the scene. As we move up the valley the Scyrrid Vawr raises its notched and pointed summit like a peak dropped down upon the lowlands. This mountain, nearly fifteen hundred feet high, whose name means the "Great Fissure," is severed into an upper and lower summit by a deep cleft due to a landslip. It is also known as the Holy Mountain, and in its day has been the goal of many pilgrims. St. Michael, the guardian of the hills, has a chapel there, where crowds resorted on the eve of his festival. It used to be the custom for the Welsh farmers to send for sackloads of earth out of the cleft in this Holy Mountain, which they sprinkled over their houses and farm-buildings to avoid evil.
They were also especially careful to strew portions over the coffins and graves of the dead. At the village of Wormridge, where some members of the Clive family are buried, there is a grand old elm on the village-green around which the people used to a.s.semble for wrestling and for the performance of other rural amus.e.m.e.nts. At the base of this tree stood the stocks, that dungeon "all of wood" to which it is said there was
"----neither iron bar nor gate, Portcullis, chain, nor bolt, nor grate, And yet men durance there abide In dungeon scarce three inches wide."
This famous valley also contains the pretty church and scanty ruins of the castle of Kilpeck; also the church of St. Peter at Rowlstone, where the ornamental representations of c.o.c.ks and apostolic figures all have their heads downward, in memory of the position in which St. Peter was crucified. Here also, on the edge of the Black Mountains, is Oldcastle, whose ruins recall its owner, Sir John "of that ilk," the martyr who was sentenced in 1417 to be taken from the Tower of London to St. Giles"
gallows, there to be hanged, and burned while hanging, as "a most pernicious, detestable heretic." At Longtown, the residence of the Lacies, there are remains of the walls and circular keep of their strong Border fortress. Kentchurch, on the slope of Garway Hill, is a seat of the Earl of Scudamore, where anciently lived John of Kent, a poet and mathematician, of whom Symonds tells us in his _Records of the Rocks_ that "he sold his soul to the devil, and constructed the bridge over the Monnow in a single night." The ruined castle of Grosmont is about a mile distant: it was often besieged by the Welsh, and we are told that on one occasion "the king came with a great army to raise the siege, whereof, as soon as the Welshmen had understanding, they saved their lives by their legges." It was here that Henry of Monmouth defeated the Welsh, capturing Glendower"s son Griffith.
ABERGAVENNY AND LLANTHONY.
[Ill.u.s.tration: LLANTHONY PRIORY, LOOKING DOWN THE NAVE.]
Rounding the southern extremity of the Black Mountains, and proceeding farther westward, we enter another beautiful region, the Vale of Usk, a stream that flows southward into the estuary of the Severn. Here is Abergavenny, with its ancient castle guarding the entrance to the upper valley, and with mountains on every side. Here rises, just north of the town, the Sugar Loaf, one thousand eight hundred and fifty-two feet high, and on the left hand the ma.s.s of old red sandstone known as the Blorenge, one thousand seven hundred and twenty feet high. A few miles up the tributary vale of Ewias, which discloses glorious scenery, are the ruins of Llanthony Priory. The valley is a deep winding glen cut out by the Hodeni between the great cliffs of the Black Mountains on the one side and the ranges around the Sugar Loaf on the other. In places the cliffs are precipitous, but, generally, the lower slopes furnish pasture-land and occasional woods, while the upper parts are covered with bracken fern, with a few trees and copses. The priory stands on a gentle slope at the base of the Black Mountains, elevated a short distance above the stream. Its original name was Llanhodeni, or "the Place by the Hodeni." It was founded by two hermits in the beginning of the twelfth century--William de Lacy, a Norman knight, and Ernisius, chaplain to Maud, wife of Henry I. They first built a small chapel dedicated to St. David; gifts flowed in, and they were soon enabled to construct a grand religious house, occupied by Augustinian monks, of whom Ernisius became the first prior. Predatory raids by the Welsh, however, hara.s.sed the monks, and after submitting for some time to these annoyances they migrated to Gloucester, and founded another priory alongside the Severn. Later, however, they returned to the old place and kept up both establishments, but in the reign of Edward IV. the older was merged into the newer "because of the turbulence of the neighboring people and the irregular lives of its inmates." The ruins of Llanthony are supposed to date from about 1200, and are of a marked though simple beauty. The convent buildings are almost all gone, excepting fragments of the cellars and chapter-house. The prior"s residence has become a farm-house, and where the monks sat in solemn conclave is now its outbuildings. The towers are used, one for chambers and the other for a dairy. The main part of the church is, however, carefully preserved with a green turf floor, and the western towers up to the level of the walls of the nave are still quite perfect, though the west window is gone and parts of the adjacent walls have perished. The north transept has fallen, but the southern transept is still in fair condition, lighted at the end by a pair of round-headed windows, with a circular one above; a semicircular arch on its eastern side opens into a chapel. The choir is also well preserved. These ruins exhibit semicircular with pointed arches in indiscriminate combination, and during the present century decay has caused much of them to fall. It was to Llanthony that Walter Savage Landor removed in 1809, selling much of his family estates in order to buy it. He projected grand improvements, including the restoration of the priory, the construction of roads and bridges, and the cultivation of extensive tracts on the mountainside, so that it became of note among literary men as the home of one of the most original of their guild. His biographer tells us that he imported sheep from Segovia, and applied to Southey and other friends to furnish him tenants who would introduce improved agricultural methods. The inhabitants of this remote region were morose and impoverished, and he wished to reclaim them. To clothe the bare spots on the flanks of the mountains, he bought two thousand cones of the cedars of Lebanon, each calculated to produce a hundred seeds, and he often exulted "in the thought of the million cedar trees which he would thus leave for shelter and the delight of posterity." But he met the fate of many projectors.
After four years" struggle he became disgusted with Llanthony and its people: he was in a quarrel with almost everybody, and his genius for punctiliousness had turned nearly the whole neighborhood against him. He had sunk his capital in the estate and its improvements, and becoming embarra.s.sed, it was taken out of his hands and vested in trustees. His half-built house was pulled down, and the disgusted Landor left England for the Continent. At Llanthony he composed Latin verses and English tragedy, but his best literary labor was performed after he left there.
A few miles farther up the valley is Capel-y-Ffyn, where Father Ignatius within a few years has erected his Anglican monastery. He was Rev. Mr.
Lyne, and came from Norwich, where he was in frequent collision with the bishop. After much pother and notoriety he took his Protestant monastic settlement to this nook in the heart of the Black Mountains, where he and his monks perform their orisons in peace.