GENERAL OBSERVATIONS—A SKETCH OF WELCH HISTORY—ANCIENT BUILDINGS.

SECT. I.

In making the Tour of South Wales and Monmouthshire, the Admirer of picturesque beauty dwells with peculiar pleasure on a tract of country comprising the greater part of Monmouthshire, and bordering the Severn and Bristol channel, to the western limits of Pembrokeshire. In this enchanting district, a succession of bold hills, clothed with wild forests, or ornamental plantations and delightful valleys, present themselves in constant variety: many fine estuaries and rivers, picturesque towns, and princely ruins, also adorn the scene, whose charms are inconceivably heightened by the contiguity of the Bristol channel, which washes the coast; in some places receding into capacious bays; in others, advancing into rocky promontories of the most imposing grandeur.

The Statistical Enquirer finds equal subject of gratification, in the uncommon fertility of several valleys, and the woody treasures of numerous hills, bearing myriads of oaks, and other first-rate timber-trees. The mineral wealth of the country, and its convenient coast for traffic, are likewise subjects of high consideration; and, while the statist applauds the late rapid strides of manufactures and commerce in this district, he may discover sources hitherto latent for their increase.

The Historian cannot fail of being interested while treading on the ground where Britons made their latest and most vigorous efforts for independence, against successive invaders; nor the Antiquary, while traversing a country replete with Monuments of the Druidical ages; military works of the Romans, Britons, Saxons, and Normans; and the venerable relics of numerous religious foundations.

Beyond this stripe of country, from ten to twenty miles in width, forming the southern extremity of Wales, and an intermixture of rich scenery (particularly in the neighbourhood of Brecon), with prevailing dreariness on the eastern frontier, South-Wales exhibits a tedious extent of hills without majesty, valleys overrun with peat bogs, and unprofitable moors. Beside the superb ruins of St. David’s, the course of the Tivy near Cardigan, and the scenery about the Devil’s Bridge, it has little to entice the attention of the tourist: the towns, for the most part, are miserably poor, and travelling accommodations very uncertain; the roads, too, are wretched beyond any thing that a mere English traveller ever witnessed. It is, therefore, a subject of no small gratification, that the chief beauties of South-Wales are found in a compact route; abounding with good towns, respectable accommodations, and very fair roads. This part of the country may be explored in a close carriage, though the better mode of travelling is, certainly, on horse-back. The pedestrian may claim peculiar advantages in his way of getting on; but I do not conceive, that a man enduring the fatigue of trudging day after day through miry roads, can maintain an exhilaration of spirits congenial with the beauties that surround him.

SECT. II.

The geographical situation and present limits of Wales are unnecessary to be here described. Of its history, the first certain accounts that we collect are on the invasion of the Romans, when Wales appears to have been divided into three principalities: the Silures, the Ordovices, and the DimitÆ. The Silures possessed all that tract of country bounded by the Severn, the Tame, and the Towey; which, comprehending the counties of Monmouth, Glamorgan, Brecknock, Radnor, Hereford, and part of Gloucester, Worcester, and Caermarthen shires, comprised the greater part of South-Wales. The DimitÆ inhabited that part of South-Wales westward of the Towey; and the Ordovices, North-Wales, including Anglesea.

The Romans having subdued Britannia Prima, i.e. the Southern part of England, advanced to the conquest of Wales, by them denominated Britannia Secunda; in this, however, they met with an unlooked-for opposition; the inhabitants were vigorous and brave; and the country, wildly piled together with mountains, forests, and morasses, presented an aggregation of difficulties, that would have discouraged a people less ardent in their enterprizes: nor did they succeed, until after a long warfare and a severe loss. The Silures and DimitÆ fell under the yoke in the reign of Vespasian, when they were vanquished by Julius Frontinus. The Ordovices were not finally subdued until the time of his successor, Agricola, who, according to Tacitus, exterminated the whole nation.

The Romans retained possession of this country until A.D. 408, when they withdrew their legions, and the most warlike of the British youth, for the defence of their central dominions. The inroads of the Scots and Picts, which immediately followed, do not appear to have materially affected the Welch; nor did the Saxons, though at constant war with them for several centuries, acquire any settled dominion in the country: yet they more than once partially overran Wales, obliging it to pay tribute; and in the reign of Edward the confessor, Harold, at the head of a great army, entering Wales, defeated Prince Griffith, sovereign of North-Wales, and, establishing himself in Gwent [6] (Monmouthshire), began a Palace at Portswit, which was, however, destroyed by Griffith before its completion.

From the departure of the Romans, in 408, to the inroads of the Anglo-Norman chieftains in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, Wales was divided into numerous petty sovereignties or lordships, of varying name and extent, but tributary to an imperial Prince; though sometimes that dignity was split into two or three branches. These chiefs were usually at war with each other, or with their Princes, who seldom obtained tribute when their means of enforcing it was questionable.

The Anglo-Norman dominion in Wales was brought about in a manner wholly different from former conquests. William the First and his successors, finding sufficient employment in securing their English possessions, invited their chiefs, holding lands in the neighbourhood of Wales, to make incursions against the Welch lords, upon their separate interests. The Norman leaders thereupon, by creating feuds among the native powers, siding with one or the other party, and breaking with them on convenient opportunities, contrived to fix themselves in various parts of Wales; whence their conquests extending, by degrees, overspread the greater part of the country. The lands thus obtained became the property of the conquerors, who, under the title of lords marchers, were allowed to exercise an uncontrolled jurisdiction within their demesnes: but power acquired on such principles could only be retained by force; every petty despot secured himself in a fortress, and hence arose the extraordinary number of castles with which Wales is crowded, amounting, according to a native author, [7] to 143. The Welch princes still held a considerable tract of country, frequently overthrew the intruders, and even carried their arms into England; but in the defeat of the brave Llewelyn, by Edward the First, Wales lost every remnant of its independence, and became definitively united to the crown of England.

In the reign of Henry the Eighth Wales was divided into twelve shires, and Monmouthshire was included among the English counties; the feudal despotism of the lords-marchers was then abolished; and Wales, participating in the equal shelter of English jurisprudence, has proved itself as zealous in defending the common interests of the empire, as it was formerly conspicuous in struggling for its particular freedom.

SECT. III.

Among the numerous memorials of history and antiquity which distinguish Wales, castles and religious buildings possess the chief claim to attention; and, as Wales is an admirable field for the study of the civil and military architecture that prevailed in the middle ages, I shall give a slight sketch of the progress of those arts, so far as it seems applicable to the present purpose.

On the overthrow of the Romans by the Goths and Vandals, the arts vanished before the scourge of war; and the standard mode of architecture which adorned the Greek and Roman empires could no longer be executed in its original perfection. The general forms, indeed, were imitated, but without an observance of symmetry: the execution was rough and clumsy; the pillars were excessively thick, and the arches heavy; and where ornament was attempted the performance was very uncouth. Such was the state of architecture (a mere corruption of the Roman) that succeeded the devastations of the Goths, and has been called Saxon and Norman: the term Gothic, however, would certainly be more appropriate.

At the beginning of the twelfth century, a new style of architecture made its appearance, distinguished by pointed arches and clustered columns [9]. Though at first coldly received, and but sparingly introduced among the rounded arches and massive columns called Saxon, it soon gained an undisputed footing.

About the latter end of the reign of Henry the Third, we find it acquire a more ornamental and distinct character. The pillars, which before were rounds and encircled with slender detached shafts, were then formed in entire reeded columns; the arched roofs also, which only exhibited the main springers, then became intersected with numerous ramifications and transomes. The decorations continued to increase until toward the close of Henry the Eighth’s reign, when the light of science again dawned over Europe, and the relics of Greece and Rome were rightly considered as models of genuine taste; the classic elegance of the five Orders then appeared, intermixed with the Gothic; it soon became universal, and is now adopted in all superior buildings throughout Europe. Further characteristics of style might be pointed out, and lesser variations defined: but I do not presume to inform the antiquary; and the distinctions already drawn will be sufficient for the cursory tourist.

Castles appear of no generally chosen figure, except such were founded by the Romans, who preferred that of an oblong square, unless there were special reasons to the contrary. Small castles consisted of a single court, or ward, whose sides were usually flanked by towers. The great hall, chapel, and domestic apartments, built from the outer wall into the court, occupied one or more sides. The citadel, called also the Keep and Dungeon, was a tower of eminent strength, wherein the Garrison made their last stand, and where prisoners were sometimes confined: the citadel was often detached from the walls, and built on an artificial mound encircled with a ditch. The barracks for the soldiers in garrison was generally a range of building near the gatehouse, or principal entrance. The latter building contained apartments for the Officers of the castle, and the portal was furnished with one, two, or three portcullisses. [11] A wet or dry moat surrounded the whole; and, advanced before the drawbridge that crossed it, there was often an outwork called a barbican. Large castles were only a repetition of these courts upon somewhat of a larger scale, connected with each other (Chepstow castle consists of four). In fortresses of the first class, an extensive embattled wall sometimes encircled the mass of fortification already described, at some distance, inclosing a considerable tract of ground, as at Caerphilly in Glamorganshire. [12] Castle walls appear in some instances built of solid masonry; but their general construction is of grout work. For this purpose, two slight walls were built parallel, from six to twelve feet asunder; the interval was then filled up with loose stones and rubbish, and the whole cemented together with a great quantity of fluid (according to some authors boiling) mortar: the mass soon acquired a sufficient firmness, and in the present day it possesses the adhesion of solid rock. This method was used by the Romans, and adopted by succeeding ages; but the arches were turned, and the angles coigned with hewn stones, which, after the Conquest, were brought from Caen in Normandy.