Welsh Journals

"metric sytem" as it is called). From the lawn I enjoyed a delightful view of the distant Cardiganshire uplands extending north and north- eastwards. Immediately beyond the lawn is a meadow, at one end of which, in the days of the Brigstockes, was a tennis court. To this field is attached a legend with a touch of Mabinogi about it, and still remembered in the district. According to this, a Welsh chieftain lived at Gellidywyll, owner of fair lands and a warrior of repute. He possessed a favourite charger which followed him about like a dog, and carried him on all his forays and expeditions. Neither horse nor warrior received scathe during numerous warlike encounters, and so attached was the master to his mount that he shod him with shoes of pure gold. Having survived the perils of battle, the charger eventually died in the peace of the stable attended by his friend and master. The mournful chieftain buried him in the field before the mansion so that the first sight to greet his waking eyes would be the mound covering the remains of his faithful mount. On certain evenings at the hour of the full moon, a cantering wraith can be seen around the field, hooves pitching skywards to catch the glint of moonbeams on his golden shoes. Earliest owners and occupiers Practically nothing is known of the earlier house and land of Gelli- dywyll, except that at one stage it had consisted of two adjacent farms collectively known as Tir merch Ieuan David Llwyd, the merch having probably been an heiress. One of these farms may have been called Gellidywyll, which by the end of the sixteenth century superseded the earlier collective name. The heiress's name is given in the earliest- known deed relating to the property, dated 4 December 1549, when Howell David ap Jankyn of Kenarth, yeoman, son and heir of Marg- aret verch Ievan David Lloyd, deceased, made a gift of the tenement called Tyre merche Ievan David Lloyd (formerly held by the said Margaret) to Morice ap Owen ap Howell [ap Jenkin Lloyd of Blaiddbwll] of Pen Kelly Issa, gentleman. This transaction was probably a mortgage, for some forty years later, in September 1589 Jenkin ap Howell of Llandygwydd, Cardiganshire, yeoman, son and heir of Howel ap David ap Jenkin, deceased, sold the two messuages formerly called Tir Merche Ieuan David Lloyd, "now called Gellie Dowyll" in Cenarth parish, to James Lewes of Penbryn parish, esquire. Both forms of the name, Gellydywyll and its alias, continued to be used in legal documents down to the year 1725. Of Jenkin ap Howell the yeoman freeholder, we know little. The Golden Grove MSS state that during the latter half of the sixteenth century two brothers, descendants of a gentry family, lived at Gelli- dywyll, probably as tenants, for we know that the yeoman was the owner