The Cambrian Tourist, or, Post-Chaise Companion through Wales [1834]: Containing cursory sketches of the Welsh territories, and a description of the manners, customs, and games of the nativesAnonymous
History
The Cambrian Tourist, or, Post-Chaise Companion through Wales [1834]: Containing cursory sketches of the Welsh territories, and a description of the manners, customs, and games of the natives
Anonymous
Wales -- Guidebooks
The market-days at this place are Wednesdays and Saturdays. Its
population is rated at about thirteen hundred. The beach here is
excellent; and so much resorted to in the summer season, that it appears
probable it will grow into notice as a sea bathing-place. Several
hundred acres of land in the vicinity of the town, which used to be
overflowed by high tides, have been reclaimed by embankments on both
sides of the town. It is governed by a mayor, two bailiffs, and a
recorder.
Returning from Pwllheli towards Criccaeth, the country wears the most
beautiful aspect. The richly wooded scenery is relieved by shaggy rocks
and partial views of the sea being caught through the opening glades.
Passing Llandstundwy, situate on the river Dwyfor, which after heavy
rains overflows its banks, and greatly incommodes it, I left the road,
and proceeded by Trefan Hall, the handsome mansion of Mr. Roberts, to a
cromlech, about a mile distant, called Coeten Arthur, or Arthur’s Quoit,
which the said Arthur, as report says, threw from a mountain near
Beddgelert. It is handsome and in high preservation: the top stone is
nearly three feet in thickness. But a still finer cromlech is about a
mile from this, at a farm called Ystim Cegid; the flat stone of this is
about eighteen inches in thickness, and is about thirty-six feet in
circumference: its form is triangular, and its supporters of that height,
that will allow a man on horseback to go under it; this also is called
Arthur’s Quoit. From hence to Criccaeth the road is dull and
uninteresting: near the ruins of the small chapel of Bettws, is Chewilog,
an old mansion, formerly belonging to the ancestors of Sir Howel,
surnamed y-Fwyall, from his remarkable dexterity in the use of the
battle-axe, which weapon he used with such effect in the battle of
Poictiers, that the capture of the French monarch is, by many, ascribed
to him; at all events, his conduct on that day drew down upon him the
regards of the Black Prince to such extent, that he not only bestowed
upon him the constableship of Criccaeth Castle, but likewise knighted
him; and, in perpetual memorial of his good services, it was directed
that a mess of meat should, at the expence of the crown, be every day
served up before the axe with which he had performed such good service.
After the mess had been brought before the knight, it was taken and
distributed among the poor. Eight yeomen attendants were constituted to
guard the mess, who received each eight-pence a-day pay, and were termed
yeomen of the crown: these were continued on the establishment till the
reign of Queen Elizabeth; and it is by many conceived, and by no means
improbable, that the yeomen of the crown, which we do not read of in
history till the reign of Henry the Seventh, are indebted to these for
their origin. After the death of Sir Howel, the mess was still carried
before the axe, and bestowed on the poor for the repose of his soul.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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