not observe, and all the towers are western, except Llandeilo.

In their general effect these churches do not differ very materially from those I observed between Chepstow and Newport; there is the same picturesque outline, the same absence of architectural enrichment, and often of architectural character. But they struck me as decidedly inferior to the southern churches; they are not ruder, but they are somehow more vulgar; for instance staring square-headed windows of meagre Perpendicular supplant the delightful trefoil-headed lights, and the superior kind of square-headed Perpendicular window which form the staple of the other district. One peculiarity they have which I do not remember in those of the other district, a custom namely of setting the broad square windows in a shallow recess reaching the whole height of the wall. In some cases this might be connected with the arrangements of the pulpit or roodloft, but this does not seem to account for such a case as Llangattock, where there are two such side by side.

The degree of ornament is much the same as in the southern district. I saw nothing so rude as the rudest examples in Gower and Pembrokeshire, but on the other hand there is nothing so elegant as the exceptional cases of elaborate work in those regions. There is nothing to set against Rhosilly and Cheriton, Hodgeston and Carew. A large Perpendicular east window at Llangattock would be well exchanged for a trefoiled triplet or couplet. But I ought to mention that at Llanvapley the east end contains a very good detached couplet of ordinary lancets, and over them a plain circle. The composition was very pleasing, but it was so dark that I could not ascertain whether it was entirely original, as the church had evidently undergone some amount of renovation. I ought however to add that this same renovation, whatever its exact extent, has certainly had the effect of reducing Llanvapley churchyard, and at least the exterior of its church, to a more neat and seemly condition than any that I have seen during my travels in this part of the kingdom.

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Small military features may be discerned both in the towers and in other parts of the churches, as in sloped bases to the walls and the like; but the military character in the towers is very imperfect compared with those of Pembrokeshire. The towers, excepting Raglan, which is more like an ordinary English steeple, are without buttresses, and seldom have any conspicuous windows, but they are not so lofty as the fully developed type, and they lack the prominent stair-case turret. Indeed, except Llanvapley, none have even a corbel-table to their parapet; the rest have a common cornice and battlement, except Llangattock, which has no parapet, but a conical roof, like Llanddew in Brecknockshire, but not coming down so immediately upon the belfry-windows.

LLANDEILO-BERTHOLEY.—The only one of these smaller churches which requires any detailed notice is that of Llandeilo, lying near Abergavenny on the road to Llanthony, not very far from the base of Skirrid-fawr. This is certainly one of the strangest churches which I have seen anywhere; its ground-plan is singular, some of its details are more singular still. It consists of a nave and chancel, with aisles, chapels, transepts, &c., collected round them in a most puzzling fashion. As the nave and chancel are only distinguished by a change in the roof which hardly affects the ground-plan, it may be more convenient to speak of the central space as an undivided unity.

To the south it has an aisle, not reaching to the extreme west, but leaving room for a porch beyond its western extremity. At the east of this aisle, almost ranging with the east wall, a transept projects. Four irregular arches divide this aisle and transept from the central space. First to the west are two segmental arches with two chamfers and an octagonal pillar between them. The respond of this couplet marks the eastern extent of the nave, as there is now no pillar, but a solid mass of wall. The third arch is segmental with only one chamfer, and reaches to another mass of wall, beyond which is the arch into the transept. This last is of a very extraordinary character, being of wood,

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of a sort of late Perpendicular or incipient cinque-cento, singularly flat, and dripping with cusps, something like the nave-roof at St. David's. On the north side stands the tower, whose west wall ranges with that of the south aisle, but a modern erection has been extended to the west wall of the nave. A north aisle reaches from its eastern face to about a level with the west wall of the south transept. The tower opens southwards to the nave by a moulded segmental arch, and eastwards to the aisle by a taller moulded arch. The aisle seems to have had originally but a single arch to the central space, a moulded segmental one, nearly but not quite opposite to the third on the south side. A segmental one with a single chamfer has been cut through to the west of it. The tower has in its west wall an ogee-headed single window, with a good splay and rear-arch within, and there is an excellent three-light window at the east end of the aisle, of good Ogee tracery. But this is partly blocked by one of the singular additions made to the aisle. At its east end a small Perpendicular chapel has been added, much narrower than the aisle, with which it has no connexion, but reaching to the east end of the church. It has a panelled barrel-vault of stone, and opens to the chancel by a moulded elliptic arch. To the north also an additional aisle or chapel has been thrown out stretching to the east end of the aisle, but not so far west as the east wall of the tower. This opens to the aisle by two wooden arches, similar to that in the south transept, and connected by a wooden pillar richly carved with surface ornament. This chapel has a good coved roof.

The above description will, I think, make it clear that the church of Llandeilo-Bertholey is a very singular one, and well worth a visit from all who may be bound either for Abergavenny or for Llanthony. Externally, I know of no church even in Pembrokeshire which surpasses it in picturesque effect; as it presents a complicated display of high roofs and gables, the aisles having compass roofs. It is however a great pity that most of the windows, with the beautiful exception I have already mentioned,

ARCH, CAMB., NEW SERIES, VOL. V.

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are of a very inferior description, many of them having been inserted or altered early in the last century.

MILITARY AND DOMESTIC BUILDINGS.-As I have excluded Raglan from my subject, the best secular building I have to mention is Monmouth Castle. I imagine this is very little known, being a mere fragment, in an outof-the-way part of the town, and not likely to attract any but the professed antiquary. There remains however enough, though in a very sad case, to make out the existence of a Norman hall, altered in Decorated times. Only one end and part of the two side walls are standing; but the small and plain Norman lights remain perfect in the building under the hall; in the the hall itself they are blocked, and Decorated ones with ogee heads inserted.

The highly picturesque bridge and gateway of Monmouth are much better known. There are also, both in this town and in Abergavenny, a good many small fragments of ancient domestic architecture to be found scattered among the streets. But they are all common late Perpendicular; I saw nothing of the peculiar local style of domestic work common in Glamorgan and Pembrokeshire. There is also in the main street of Abergavenny a large gateway with a round end and Early English mouldings without shafts; this has evidently belonged to some public building, or some mansion of unusual size, but I could make out no other remains of antiquity in connexion with it. And it may even be worth while to mention the old house at Llangattock Court, though probably not earlier than Elizabethan times; it has a porch with two late Perpendicular doorways, the outer round-headed, the inner four-centred. There are also some curious wooden arches in the house, of a sort of reversed multifoil form not easy to be described. There are some similar ones in a barn at the Priory at Abergavenny.

EDWARD A. FREEMAN. Cannock, Staffordshire,

January 28, 1854.

EXTRACTS FROM THE LIBER COMMUNIS OF ST.

DAVID'S CATHEDRAL.

(Read at Tenby.)

1

Having been permitted by the kindness of the Dean and Canons of St. David's to make extracts from the records of that Cathedral, I took the opportunity in the course of last year, of copying some of the early accounts of receipts and disbursements. It has since occurred to me that it might be both instructive and entertaining to throw together a few extracts from one of these documents in the form of a paper for this meeting. Such memorials are extremely instructive, as throwing light on the daily social life of our forefathers, which in our exclusive attention to the more brilliant, but not more important, features of history, we are too apt to overlook. And I venture to think that they will be entertaining ; for though modern accounts, as every school-boy knows, are intensely wearisome, it often happens that ancient accounts are uncommonly amusing.

The volume from which these extracts are made, is marked “ Liber Communis, No. 1,” and the greater part of it consists of transcripts made, apparently about the middle of the seventeenth century, from rolls of expenses and other accounts of the fourteenth, fifteenth, sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. These rolls have been copied in chronological order, but are unfortunately very far from continuous; and the copyist was not so skilled in deciphering MSS. as entirely to preclude the reader from the occasional necessity of making conjectural emendations of his own. In spite of these defects, the Liber Communis is a most valuable, and (as I have already hinted) in some places a very amusing volume.

Before proceeding to give instances of either quality, I must say a few words on the method formerly adopted

1 The Computi of the Cathedral, down to the period of the

Reformation, will be given in an Appendix to our History of St. David's.