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TOPOGRAPHICAL DICTIONARY

OF

WALES,

COMPRISING THE

SEVERAL COUNTIES, CITIES, BOROUGHS, CORPORATE AND MARKET TOWNS,

PARISHES, CHAPELRIES, AND TOWNSHIPS,

WITH

HISTORICAL AND STATISTICAL DESCRIPTIONS:

EMBELLISHED WITH

ENGRAVINGS OF THE ARMS OF THE BISHOPRICS, AND OF THE ARMS AND SEALS OF THE VARIOUS

CITIES AND MUNICIPAL CORPORATIONS:

AND ILLUSTRATED BY

MAPS OF THE DIFFERENT COUNTIES.

BY SAMUEL LEWIS.

IN TWO VOLUMES.

VOL. II. FROM LLANEDARN TO Y VAENOR ISAV.

Third Edition.

LONDON:

PUBLISHED BY S. LEWIS AND CO., 13, FINSBURY PLACE, SOUTH.

M. DCCC. XLV.

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TOPOGRAPHICAL DICTIONARY

OF

WALES.

LLAN-E

LLANEDARN (LLAN-EDEYRN), a parish, in the union of CARDIFF, hundred of KIBBOR, county of GLAMORGAN, SOUTH WALES, on the banks of the Romney, 4 miles (N. E. by N.) from Cardiff; containing 354 inhabitants. This parish, which comprises about two thousand five hundred and fifty acres of land, partly arable and partly pasture, lies on the eastern confine of the county, and the surface, though in general low, presents some pleasing scenery it gradually rises to the north, into an elevated ridge, in some parts richly wooded, and the whole is embellished with several genteel mansions, the principal of which are, New House, Ruperra, and Cevn Mably. To the west the venerable cathedral of Llandaf, and southward Cardiff and the Bristol Channel, are included in the prospect. The living is a discharged vicarage, united to that of St. Mellon's, in the county of Monmouth, rated in the king's books at £5. 8. 11.; the impropriation is vested in the Chapter of Llandaf. The church, a small simple structure, is dedicated to St. Edeyrn, who, it is stated, established a Christian society here, amounting in number to three hundred persons. The Rev. William Edwards, in 1782, bequeathed £400 for charitable purposes, £100 of which he directed should be applied for the use of the poor of this parish: the interest of this sum, which with the original bequest, lies in the hands of Sir Charles Morgan, of Tredegar, Bart., is distributed in January among such poor as are not receiving parochial relief.

LLANEDWEN (LLAN-EDWEN), a parish, in the union of BANGOR and BEAUMARIS, hundred of MENAI, County of ANGLESEY, NORTH WALES, 5 miles (N. E. by N.) from Carmarthen; containing 283 inhabitants. This parish has been said to derive its name from the dedication of its church to King Edwin, by whose daughter or niece it was founded, VOL. II.-1

LLAN-E

in the year 640; but Dr. Owen Pughe, in his “Cambrian Biography," states that Edwen was a female saint of Saxon descent, and seems to consider her the tutelar saint of this church. It is situated on the western shore of the Menai strait, and, with the adjoining parishes of Llanidan and Llandeiniol, anciently formed a district which was the principal seat of the Druidical priesthood, and in which the archdruid is supposed to have had for ages his chief residence. There are still within the district, and particularly in this parish, considerable remains of those deeply-shaded groves so well adapted to the performance of the sanguinary rites of the Druidical religion, which obtained for this island the appellation of Ynys Dywell, or "the Shady Island" and amid them are numerous remains of Druidical temples, altars, circles, and cromlechs. Porthamel, or Porth-Aml, the only ferry between the Menai bridge and Carnarvon, is celebrated as the place where Suetonius Paulinus, in the reign of the Emperor Nero, crossed the strait for the invasion of Mona, in which attempt he was opposed by the Druids, who, having assembled an army of men and women arranged in all the mystic terrors of their idolatrous superstition, and brandishing lighted torches, drew up on the western shore to oppose their progress. But after spreading a momentary panic through the Roman ranks, they were quickly repulsed by the rallying troops, and many of them consigned to perish in their own sacrificial fires. The sacred groves in which their rites were solemnized were cut down, and the reign of Druidism, which had for ages been established in this isle, as its principal seat, was finally destroyed. At a short distance from this place is a field still called Maes Mawr Gâd, or "the plain of the great army," supposed to have been occupied by the Roman forces under Julius Agricola, in his successful expedition to regain pos

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