A tour throughout South Wales and MonmouthshireBarber, J. T. (John Thomas)
History
A tour throughout South Wales and Monmouthshire
Barber, J. T. (John Thomas)
Monmouthshire (Wales) -- Description and travel; Wales, South -- Description and travel
A road passing from Brecon through Llandovery to Llandilo, in
Caermarthenshire, we did not travel; but find it described as highly
picturesque, and otherwise interesting. For several miles it traverses
an undulating district enlivened by the Usk; which now, approaching its
source in the Trecastle hills, assumes all the impetuosity of a mountain
torrent. The spacious lawns, long avenues of trees, and extensive
plantations of Penbont, grace the bonders of the stream about three miles
from Brecon; and on the left of the road, a small distance further,
appear the trifling remains of Davenock castle. TRECASTLE, ten miles
from Brecon, a small village but possessing a good inn, is deprived of
every vestige of its ancient fortification. From this place the road
winds for nine miles to Llandovery, in a deep valley, between the
mountains, called CWM-DWR, a romantic pass watered by a lively stream,
and dotted with numerous cottages, whose fertile hollow is beautifully
contrasted by the wild aspect of the impendent heights. LLANDOVERY is a
small irregular town, nearly encompassed by rivulets, and only to be
noticed by the picturesque traveller for the small ruins of its
ivy-mantled castle. The road then continues to Llandilo on a high
terrace, ornamented on the right by the groves of Taliaris and Abermarle
parks, and overlooking the upper vale of Towey, rich in cultivation and
the beauty of its stream.
On the road to Hereford from Brecon, about seven miles, is BRUNLYSS
CASTLE; the principal and almost only feature of which is a high round
tower on an artificial mount. Its foundation is uncertain, but cannot be
later than the first settlement of the Normans in the county. There is a
curious circumstance connected with an incident in the history of this
castle, which I think very probably suggested the character of
Faulconbridge in Shakespeare’s play of King John. The acknowledged son
and heir of Bernard de Newmarch and his wife Nesta was Mahel, a
dauntless, youth, who, after the death of Bernard, having affronted a
paramour of his mother’s, and upbraided the matron herself, became in a
most extraordinary manner deprived of his inheritance. Nesta, enraged at
the interference of her son in her tender arrangements, presented herself
before Henry the Second, and solemnly made oath that he was not the son
of Bernard lord of Breton; but was begotten by a Cambrian warrior,
thereby proclaiming her son a bastard, and satisfying her revenge, though
at the expence of every maternal tie and of the strongest sentiments of
female worth. Bernard’s estates, in consequence, fell to his daughter
Sibyl wife of Milo earl of Hereford; and Mahel, ejected from his
patrimony, became a lawless desperado. Once, as he was on a predatory
excursion over the domains of David Fitzgerald, bishop of St. David’s, he
was entertained by Walter de Clifford in Brunlyss Castle for one night;
when the building took fire, and he, in endeavouring to escape, was
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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