[Illustration: PONTRILAS COURT.]
[Illustration: 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 principal
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
recumbent 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 assemble for wrestling and
for the performance of other rural amusements. 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 cocks 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.