ABBEY OF GRACE-DIEU--SIR DAVID GAM--WHITE CASTLE--ABERGAVENNY HILLS--THE
TOWN, CASTLE, AND CHURCH.
Within a short distance southward of the road from Monmouth to
Abergavenny, and about three miles from the first-mentioned town, are the
small remains of the abbey of GRACE-DIEU, chiefly formed into a barn,
situated on a sequestered bank of the Trothy. A farm on the opposite
side of the river was the park belonging to the abbey; and hence it is
called Parc-gras-dieu farm; the house of which is built on the ruins of
the ancient lodge.
LLANDILO CRESSENEY, the seat of Richard Lewis, Esq.; pleasingly situated
in a rich undulating country to the south of the road, about half way to
Abergavenny, is a modern house built on the site of an ancient mansion of
the Powells. The position commands an interesting prospect of the
neighbouring country; and in the home view the church of Llandilo, with
its high spire, forms a picturesque and leading object. In an adjoining
field, belonging to a farm that was formerly the red-deer park of Raglan
castle, is the site of Old Court, once the residence of the celebrated
Sir David Gam, not less known for his courageous report upon having
reconnoitred the enemy before the battle of Agincourt ("An't please you,
my liege, there are enough to be kilted, enough to run away, and enough
to be taken prisoners") than for his valorous achievements and
preservation of the king's life in the encounter, though at the expence
of his own. The dukes of Beaufort and the earls of Pembroke are
descended from Gladys, one of his numerous progeny, which tradition has
by no means curtailed; for it is asserted, that his children formed a
line reaching from his house to the church.
The ruins of WHITE CASTLE are very considerable, crowning the summit of a
ridgy eminence a mile and a half to the north of Llandilo. Their figure
is irregular; flanked by six circular towers, which, with the ramparts,
are pierced with oilets. Two advancing massive towers guard the
entrance, which was provided with a portcullis and drawbridge, and
rendered still more formidable by an uncommonly large outwork beyond the
moat, which is remarkably deep. This ruin is from every point of view
imposing and grand; but its ponderous unornamented towers, and its lofty
battlements, whose dark colour is rendered still more dismal by the broad
shadows of impendent foliage, rather conspire to raise an image of
baronical haughtiness and oppression, than of its show and hospitality;
yet, in the time of Elizabeth, Churchyard describes it to be
"A statelie seate, a loftie princelie place,
Whose beautie gives the simple soyle some grace."
From the architecture of this castle I should suppose its antiquity to be
at least coeval with the first settlement of the Normans in Gwent, if not
even more remote. Its history is common with that of Screnfrith and
Grosmont; but over both these it holds a decided superiority in extent,
and massiveness of construction.
On approaching ABERGAVENNY, the tourist's attention is involuntarily
arrested by the singular beauty and variety of interest which the spot
embraces, particularly in its encircling hills. The road skirting the
Little Skyridd, a well-formed hill richly laid out in wood and pasture,
opens to a fine display of the vale of Usk beneath; on the opposite side
of which the continuous ridge of the wild Pontypool hills, which form the
western boundary of the county, terminate in the heathy high-swelling
Blorenge: a tract of wood sweeps along its base, and mixes with the
sylvan knoll of Lanfoist, decorating its northern extremity. Further to
the right, the elegant smooth cone of the Sugar-loaf, the highest of the
Monmouthshire mountains, presents itself, issuing from among the four
tributary eminences of the Pen-y-vale hills. Eastward of this mountain
is the Great Skyridd, an object of considerable interest; its bipartite
and truly Alpine summit, without being a forced opposition, strikingly
contrasts the general undulating line of the neighbouring hills, and
rears a distinct and noble character on the scene. The views from this
mountain are scarcely inferior to those from the Sugar-loaf; while its
craggy form, its asperitous summit, jagged into an immense fissure, and
shelving to a ridge apex of fearful narrowness, impress a mixed emotion
of awe and admiration on the adventurous climber of the height, that more
than compensates for a small inferiority of altitude. There was
formerly, at the top of this mountain, a Roman Catholic chapel dedicated
to St. Michael, of which no vestiges remain; but a remembrance of the
site is preserved in a hollow place formed by the superstitious, who,
resorting here on Michaelmas eve, carry away the earth to strew over the
sepulchres of their friends. According to the barometrical measurement
of General Roy, the height of the Sugar-loaf mountain is 1852 feet
perpendicular above the Gavenny rivulet, near its junction with the Usk.
The Blorenge is 1720, and the Great Skyridd 1498 feet from the same
level.
The expansive bases of these mountains, nearly approximating, descend to
a finely-wooded fertile valley; through which the river Usk, rushing from
a majestic portal of wood, winds in a bright translucid stream, with all
the impetuosity of its mountain character. At the foot of one of the
confederated hills sustaining the towering cone of the Sugar-loaf, which
gently inclines to the river, ABERGAVENNY is situated; a straggling
irregular town, pleasingly interspersed with trees, but deriving its
highest attraction from the charms of its position.
Upon an eminence above the river, near the southern extremity of the
town, is the ruined castle, which in its present state exhibits very few
memorials of former magnificence. The gate-house, or principal entrance,
is tolerably entire, and vestiges of two courts may be traced among the
broken walls; but of the citadel no traces remain, although an intrenched
mound close to the ruins evidently marks its site. The town was also
fortified, and many portions of the work remain, particularly Tudor's
gate, the western entrance, furnished with two portcullisses, and
remarkable for the beautifully composed landscape seen through it. This
castle is said to have been built by a giant named Agros: without
contending for the accuracy of this tradition, however, it is certain,
that the principal part was erected by the Normans upon the site of a
British fortress.
In the twelfth century some native forces, headed by Sitfylt ap Dyfnwald,
a Welch prince, assailed this castle, and took prisoners the Anglo-Norman
garrison, with their chief, William-de-Braose, lord of Brecon. William
being, upon an adjustment of differences, reinstated in his possessions,
invited Sitfylt, his son Geoffery, and other chieftains of Gwent, to a
great feast at Abergavenny Castle, where they were all treacherously
murdered: he then surprised Sitfylt's house, and slew his other son,
Cadwallader, in the presence of his mother. This barbarity did not
escape punishment. William, flying his country, died a wretched wanderer
at Paris; and his wife and son were famished in Windsor Castle. The fate
of his grandson, Reginald, may also be considered in the light of a
retribution: Llewelyn prince of Wales, suspecting him, as Dugdale
relates, "of over much familiarity with his wife," subtilly invited him
to an eastern feast; and towards the close of the banquet, charging him
with the act, threw him into prison, where he suffered a violent death,
together with the adultress. In 1273, we find the country of Overwent,
including the castle of Abergavenny, in the possession of John de
Hastings, a very pink of chivalry. A succession of valorous knights
inherited this domain; but Richard Earl of Warwick, who became lord of
Abergavenny in the commencement of the fifteenth century, surpassed them
all, and even John himself, in military fame, and manners debonnair: he
signalized himself in tournaments at most of the courts in Europe, and
obtained the honourable appellation of "the father of courtesy."
The church is a large Gothic structure, and appears to have been built in
the form of a Roman cross, but is now curtailed of its transepts; at the
juncture of one of them, a circular arch, now filled up, wears a Norman
character, and seems to have been part of the original building. Three
arches, curiously dissimilar, separate the north aile from the nave. The
choir remains in its antique state, with stalls for a prior and his
monks, formed of oak, and rudely carved; and the ailes on either side are
furnished with the monuments of several illustrious personages.
On the north of the choir is the figure of a man in a coat of mail, with
a bull at his feet; supposed to be the monument of Sir Edward Nevill,
which is thus explained by Churchyard:
"His force was much; for he by strength
With bull did struggle so,
He broke clean off his horns at length,
And therewith let him go."
On the opposite side is the recumbent effigy of an armed knight, his legs
across, {308} and his feet resting on a greyhound. Of this the sexton's
legend relates, that the knight, returning home, saw his infant son lying
on the floor covered with blood, with his cradle overturned at his side,
and the hound standing by, with his mouth besmeared with gore.
Conceiving that the dog had attacked the child, he instantly killed it;
but soon discovered, that the blood issued from a large serpent that had
writhed about the child, and which this faithful animal had destroyed.
In the middle of the south aile of the choir, generally called the
Herberts' chapel, is the effigy of Sir William ap Thomas, and his wife
Gladys, daughter of the celebrated Sir David Gam. Beneath a handsome
alabaster monument, at the further end of the chapel, repose the ashes of
Sir Richard Herbert, of Coldbrook, and his wife. This Sir Richard, a
younger son of the just mentioned Sir William ap Thomas, was a man of
gigantic stature and uncommon strength. In the contest between the
houses of York and Lancaster, he with his brother the Earl of Pembroke
supported the White rose at the battle of Banbury, where he was at length
taken prisoner, and finally executed by the successful faction; but not
until he had passed and repassed twice through the adverse army, killing
with a pole-ax no less than 140 men; which, his illustrious descendant
and biographer, lord Herbert of Cherbury, remarks, is more than is famed
of Amadis de Gaul, or the Knight of the Sun. The richest monument in the
church is that of Sir Richard Herbert of Ewias, his nephew, which
occupies a recess in the south wall of the chapel.
Before the dissolution of religious houses, this church belonged to a
priory of Benedictine monks, which was founded by Hamelin Baladun, {310}
who is also said to have built the castle. The priory house, adjoining
the nave of the church, is converted into a commodious dwelling, which
was lately tenanted by the Gunter and Milborne family. The free-school
in the town was founded by Henry the Eighth, and amply endowed with the
revenues of forfeited monasteries, &c.
Abergavenny was a Roman town, the Gobannium of Antoninus. Leland
describes it to be "a faire waulled town, meately well inhabited;" and an
account of Monmouthshire written in 1602 represents it as "a fine town,
wealthy and thriving, and the very best in the shire." But during the
last century it was in a very declining state until the establishment of
some great iron-works, which have lately sprung up in the adjacent
mountains. When full-bottomed flaxen wigs were the rage, the town
enjoyed a temporary prosperity from a method peculiar to its inhabitants
of bleaching hair; but, perriwigs being no longer the rage, the place was
hastening to decay: just at this juncture the faculty proclaimed that
goats-whey was a specific in consumptive cases; and crowds of invalids,
under the fiat of death, immediately enlivened the town. But the
fashions of doctors are no more stationary than those of beaux; the _ton_
for goats-whey soon diminished; and, deprived of patients as well as
perriwigs, the place was relapsing into poverty and desertion, when the
fortunate discovery of the Blaenavon iron mines, (a grand concern in the
recesses of the Blorenge mountain well worth the tourist's attention)
gave a new face to the town, and still daily encreases its population.