Welsh Journals

Major-General Sandbach then proposed, and Mrs. Henry Lewis seconded, that the warmest thanks of the Association be accorded to the Mayor and Corporation of Ruthin, the Local Committee and Secretaries, the Contributors to the Loan Exhibition, and to the Warden of Ruthin for the use of the Old Grammar School. It had been a great pleasure to come to Ruthin, and everything had been splendidly arranged. The vote was carried with acclamation. EXCURSION IV.-FRIDAY, AUGUST 12. The members to-day were early astir, as there was a heavy day work in front of them. The first call was at Whitchurch, anciently called Llanfarchell,1 the parish church of Denbigh. The Rector. Canon Redfern, acted as guide and speaker. The church of St. Marchell, or Llanfarchell, he said, was founded in the sixth century by Marchell (Marcella), daughter of Hawystl Gloff, who with her two brothers Deifer and Tyrnog fixed upon this part of the Vale of Clwyd as their field for evangelisation the brothers settling oil the eastern side of the Vale founded the churches of Bodfari and Llandyrnog. Marchell founded her church on the western side, near the junction of two trackways from Bodfari and Llandyrnog. The present church dates from the fifteenth century, and is one of the most interesting in the Diocese. The magnificent hammer beam roof is a striking object in the church, and the graceful pillars and arches separating the north and south aisles are much admired. What is now called the Salusbury Chapel, was the Lleweni chantry. and the very large east window in Perpendicular style was filled with storied glass, some bits of which still exist, and beneath it the family shield and a label, Prav for the soules of and for the soule of Sir Roger Salusbury, who caused this window to be made." Ad- joining was a chapel of the Guild or Company of Taylors, a trades union of the Middle Ages, as shown by the shears on the wall both inside and out and it was probably on the window of this chapel that the petition was painted, Orate pro Iohanne Smallwoode. Ma'er of Misrule, and all other young men, who caused this window to be glazed." A peculiar feature of the church is the grotesque line of animal forms painfully carved within a narrow groove around the cornices human and other figures at the ends of some of the rafters are also 1 The church is now generally called by Wclsh-speakinc people Eglwys 1% The figure of Sea Marcella is in the fifteenth-century glass at Llandyrrog. Ffynnon Farchell, the Saint's well, near her church, is now dried up.