Volume 2

A tour in Wales, MDCCLXX [or rather 1773] / [Thomas Pennant].

  • Pennant, Thomas, 1726-1798.
Date:
1778-1783
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A tour in Wales, MDCCLXX [or rather 1773] / [Thomas Pennant]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    J39 G W E D I R. all Wales grew on this rock, within memory of man. I remem¬ ber the dools of feveral, which proved that they were equal to any which grow in the deeped foil j yet thefe rocks are totally deditute of all earth for a confiderable way, fo that the nutri¬ ment which the oaks received, mud have been derived from the deep penetration of the roots, through the fifTures of the dones, into fome nutritive matter. The antient houfe of Gwedir dands near the foot of this rock. It is built round a greater and leffer court. Over the gate-way is the date, 1558, with I. W. John Wynne ap Meredydd, gran-fa¬ ther to the famous Sir John, author of the memoirs of the family. This fhews 1553, the fuppofed time of the death of the former, to be a midake. The place takes its name from Gwaed-dir, the bloody land, from the battles fought here by Llywarch Hen *, about the year 610; or perhaps from the cruel battle in 952, between the fons of Hoe/, and the princes Jevaf and lago f; and a third may be added, between Gryffydd ap Cynan, and Trahaern ap Cradog, equally bloody J. The fuppofition that it was de¬ rived from its being the fird houfe in Wales which had glafs win¬ dows, is not well founded, thole conveniences having been known long before. Sir John Wynne himfelf even mentions a date of 1512, on a window at Dolwyddelan, which is long before the building of Gwedir. But the following lines of a poet, who dourilhed fome centuries before, is dill a dronger proof of the antiquity of glafs in our country : # See his Works. f Powe/, 60. % Vide his Life. T t. Tmy Gwedir.