pursues its rapid course into the Vale of Usk. From thence a rugged and uneven track descends suddenly into a narrow glen, narrow glen, formed by the torrent of the Gronwy, between steep impending mountains, bleak and barren for the first four or five miles, but afterwards wooded to the very margin of the stream. A high ledge of grassy hills on the left hand, of which the principal is called the Bal, or Y Fal, divides this formidable pass (Malus Passus') from the Vale of Ewyas, in which stands the noble monastery of Llanthoni (montibus suis inclusum '), encircled by its mountains. The road at length emerging from this deep recess of Coed Grono, or Cwm Gronwy, the vale of the river Gronwy, crosses the river at a place called 'Pont Escob,' or the Bishop's Bridge, probably so called from this very circumstance of its having been now passed by the Archbishop and his suite, and is continued through the forest of Moel till it joins the Hereford road, about two miles from Abergavenny. This formidable defile is at least nine miles in length." Thus skilfully does Sir Richard Colt Hoare work out the slender but suggestive hint given by Giraldus when he wrote. From thence we proceeded through the narrow, woody tract called the "bad pass of Coed Grono," leaving the noble monastery of Lanthoni, enclosed by its mountains on our left.3 In this memorable journey did the Archbishop and Giraldus visit the church of Partrishow? Most likely they did. For they must, in any case, have passed close by it; and in the account of Llanthoni, which they did not visit, "leaving it on their left," Giraldus's description seems to be almost borrowed from Partrishow: "a deep vale, about an arrow-shot broad;" "a situation truly calculated for

1 The Itinerary (Bohn), p. 364 n.

ניי

2 "Transivimus inde versus Abergeuenni per arctum illud Siluestre, quod malum passum de Coed Grono vocant, nobile Cænobium de Lanthoni montibus suis inclusum a latere sinistro relinquentes."

3 Itin. Cambr., p. 100.

religion, and more adapted to canonical discipline, than all the monasteries in the British isle."

The Norwich Taxation, A.D. 1253, for St. David's is not known to exist; and in the Lincoln Taxation of 1291 the place is not named, nor is any place indicated under Llanbedr, though of course it must have been included. Nor yet does it occur in the Valor of 26 Hen. VIII, 1535; but the presentation of Thomas Williams, by William, Marquis of Worcester, in 1555, was made "to the Rectory of St. Peter's with the chapel of Llanysho, otherwise Llanbedr and Partrisso." Of its intermediate medieval history, therefore, we know nothing. Whether the two stone altars were erected at the same time is nowhere stated; but from their relative position and symmetry, we have no doubt they were, and both of them were evidently anterior to the rood-loft, which was erected in the fifteenth century over them, leaving a very small portion of each slab on the eastern side, though by far the greatest part of each is on the west. Who designed it or worked out its beautiful carvings is not known; but it was probably the handywork of some of the skilled "conversi," or lay brethren, of Llanthony, while the funds for its production must have come from the liberal gifts of pilgrims and travellers. To the same source, and probably the same period, we may attribute the churchyard cross, the stem of which is still standing, though shorn of its carved and canopied head. Upon the stone bench along the south wall, we pictured ourselves among the rude forefathers of the parish, with pilgrims and strangers from many a distant part; the aged and weary resting-while the younger and stronger stood around-all listening, with strained ears, on some great festival day, to the absorbing Story of the Cross, and reverently looking at Him, to whom the aged priest, as he stood upon its steps, pointed as evidently set forth crucified before their eyes; and surely few places could be more appropriate for such

1 The Itinerary, p. 354.

2 Galatians iii, 1.

moving and inspiring scenes than that quiet, restful, sacred spot. Whether due to this feeling of reverence, or to its seclusion and comparative insignificance, or partly to both, it was greatly spared at the Reformation and in the Commonwealth régime; but it did not altogether escape: the shrine was denuded of its image, and the head of the cross destroyed. It was probably to the iconoclasm of the Commonwealth that this was due, for then the old rector, Thomas Cecil, who had been a Fellow of St. John's College, Cambridge, and Proctor of the University, was deprived of his living, in which he was succeeded by Elias Harri, a cobbler.' But on the Restoration he, too, in turn, was ejected and Cecil restored. The most eminent of all the rectors was Francis Godwin, Student of Christ Church, Oxford, appointed in 1584, and promoted to the bishopric of Llandaff in 1601 (in succession to William Morgan, the translator of the Old Testament into Welsh), and thence transferred to Hereford in 1617. He is described by Browne Willis as "a most curious searcher into antiquity," and was the author of A Catalogue of the Bishops of England, 1614, of which a Latin version was published in 1616 under the title of De Presulibus Angliæ.3

The visit to the church ended, we turned homewards, and noticed the evidence of the earlier travellers in the foundations of walls, on the timber-covered patch between the churchyard and the lane; and as we moved downwards between the steep sides of the deepworn track, a wish was expressed that we might find some wayside cross or other memorial of the ancient Pilgrim Road. We had not proceeded more than twenty yards when we saw lying by the roadside a rough and unshaped stone, some 3 ft. 8 in. long by I ft. 8 in. at its broadest part, on which was carved a 1 Walker's "Sufferings of the Clergy," in Jones's Brecknockshire, 381 n.

p.

2 Protestant Nonconformity in Wales, 2nd ed., p. 123. 3 Llandaf, pp. 67, 68.

small and simple cross, unusual in form, and without the adjunct of an enclosing circle. The arms are all of equal length, 2 in., and are formed by a double line dilating from the centre, and in each case united across at the end. I have looked carefully through Professor Westwood's Lapidarium Wallia, and the only instance I can find there at all like it is the small cross numbered 1, on Plate 39, of a stone at Llaufrynach. In taking a rubbing of the stone subsequently for the accompanying illustration, Lord Glanusk discovered upon it a second small cross unnoticed before; this, too, has the arms of equal length, & in., with the ends expanded, and it is a curious coincidence that this also has its only representation in the Lapidarium, in the other and more elaborate "Iohis" inscribed stone at the same place, viz., in the little cross at the head of the carved face. The resemblance is noteworthy, and, being in the same county, it implies a correspondence in date, if not an identity in the engraver, of the three

stones.

Since writing the above, I have received through Lord Glanusk, from Mr. Lloyd Harries, the Rector of Llanbedr and Partrishow, who had been written to about it, the following letter, which seems at first sight to dispose entirely of the correctness of what I have said above, but which, on careful examination, hardly affects it, and indeed rather enhances the interest of the find. He writes:

"I have been making enquiries about the history of the crossstone. Mr. Powell, of Tynllwyn, the farm near the church, a man of about eighty years old, told me last Sunday that it was he who placed the stone where it now is, some fifty or sixty years ago. He said 'his father and he dug out the stone, and many others like it, which are still inside the field close by, for the sake of widening the road.' He showed me the spot on the left-hand side of the road, half way up the hill, from which the stones had been removed, where there is a rocky part which had been cut through. He said there was not a cross on the stone when he put it there, but that it has been made by someone since: possibly, he thought, by one of the Ordnance Survey men,

who carry tools for marking stones with the broad arrow with them; or, perhaps, by one of the Llanthony people."

Now, I do not for a moment question Mr. Powell's statement as to his removal of the stone; it only alters the site by a few dozen yards, and it would still have been on the side of the Pilgrim way. And when he says that "there were many others like it which are still inside the field close by," he excites one's curiosity whether there may not be found a cross upon some of them also; and I hope a careful examination will be made of them.

I am not, however, prepared to accept the further statement that there was not a cross upon it when he put it there. Doubtless, he did not notice one; "fifty or sixty years ago," few people would have taken any account of it, and it is nothing strange that it should have escaped the notice of a young man removing stones from the roadside. Why, when Lord Glanusk and myself examined the stone carefully, and with a purpose, we only observed one cross upon it: the other only came to light when subjected to a rubbing.

Then as to the suggestion of the origin: they have not the freshness of a modern Llanthony incision, nor the clean cut of the tool of an Ordnance worker. And if they had either the one or the other, the form is so uncommon that one can hardly conceive an amateur to have engraved them. Their singularity I have already pointed out. That the stone was erected to mark the proximity of the Holy Well, as I had supposed, I, of course, can no longer uphold; but that the crosses upon it are of genuine antiquity I am fully satisfied; and I shall look with great interest to any further examination of the locality.

I will only add, that the find added zest to our archæological search, and on our return we kept a watchful look-out on the walls and hedge-sides, and all likely blocks on our way back. And, indeed, we did discover on the wall on our right hand, at the distance of about half a mile, a small oblong stone, scored with