Welsh Journals

by the late worthy Archdeacon Payne, are upon subjects of Antiquarian importance, and in which at the time they were brought together, I took a considerable interest', but never a thought that it was the centenary of his birth and that the Association might produce something worthy of the occasion. Another manuscript volume at the National Library is one entitled: 'Recollections of a visit to Llanbedr with Remarks on an Excursion down the River Wye from Ross to Chepstow 1807, and purported to have been written by A. M. Cuyler, but unquestionably in the Arch- deacon's own hand. In these travel books there is reproduced much of the material found in his Visitations of the Deanery of the Third Part of Brecon. They include also, of course, much new material. This volume is particularly interesting as in it we have descriptions of the people's dress, houses and food. He refers to Welsh fairies and was conversant with the work of Edmund Jones, the Transh. On page 165, he describes the upland houses 'The farm buildings in the part of Brecknockshire which I have visited are generally arranged in a line-and the habitations of men and cattle under one common roof. A wide passage commonly separates the cow-house from the kitchen- which in most houses is approached by two or three steps-with a porch at the principal entrance, opposite to which is a door communicating with the yard. The dwelling, for the most part, consists of a spacious kitchen ­out of which are two small rooms-one of which is a bed-chamber, and the other a pantry. The room above is frequently used as a common bed-chamber for the whole family-the Master and Mistress sleeping on a raised bed-stead-and the servants on flock mattresses on the floor round the room. This exactly corresponds with the account given by Giraldus Cambrensis in his Description of Wales (1188). 'The farm boys often sleep over the cow-house-I must here be understood as speaking of the small highland farmer. The windows (of the cottages) are furnished with lattices made of split willow instead of glass, which is seldom seen in such dwellings They keep a pig and the farmers give them a little patch of ground to clear for potatoes The farmers salt their own beef and bacon and have their small ale or cyder provided for their harvest, but flesh-meat from the market is a luxury which they seldom indulge in, excepting perhaps at the christening of their children. Bread and cheese, with milk flummery and potatoes constituting the common food of this laborious class of people. Their bread is commonly made into thin, broad cakes which they term Bara-Llechwen, from its being baked on stones placed over the fire-Llech-wen signifies a white flat stone. But iron plates have now pretty generally superseded the ancient baking stones, though the same name continues. The mode, however, is decidedly a bad one, as it occasions a very unnecessary waste of flour.