Welsh Journals

^rdmeologia iftainferensig* No. XVI.—OCTOBER, 1849. ACCOUNT OF CWMHIR ABBEY, RADNORSHIRE. I.----SlTUxlTION AND HISTORICAL PARTICULARS. The ruins of this old monastery are in the north-west portion of the county of Radnor, on the banks of the rivulet Clewedock, in a very retired but pleasing situation. The place is distant about six miles eastward from the town of Rhayader, and about seven miles north-westward from Penybont, a village on the London road through New Radnor and Rhayader to Aberystwyth, from which village it is easy of access by a good carriage road, which is not the case from Rhayader. The monastery was called, and the place still has the name of Abbey Cwmhir,1 the situation forming the latter part of the appellation, agreeably to the Welsh idiom; and it derives its name from being situated in a long dingle, or narrow vale, of considerable length, which the word Cwmhir signifies. The abbey was founded, according to an extract from the Chronicles of the Abbey of St. Werburgh, at Chester, preserved in the British Museum,2 and referred to by Dugdale in his " Monasticon,"3 in the year 1143,4 by a daughter of Blanchland, but no further particulars of this lady are mentioned. Leland, however, relates in his 1 Pronounced Coomheere, the first syllable short, as oo, in foot; and the latter long, as ee, in feet. 2 Cotton MSS., Vespasian; A. V., 33 h. 3 Vol. i., p. 825. 4 Ninth year of King Stephen. AHCIIiEOL. CAMB. VOL. IV.] 2 II