Landor’s land schemes and the chapels of Llanthony

Expelled from Rugby, sent down from Oxford, he sought in 1809 at the age of 34, to realise himself in a new environment. He realised himself! In the incredibly green Llanthony this ex-soldier who had fought in Spain against Napoleon, lived in the Prior’s house adjoining they abbey and planned a vast scheme.

I have told readers previously how Landor spent thousands of pounds planting cedar saplings, building bridges and a house, importing cattle and at the same time alienating the people of the valley.

After a century what remains? A trace of house foundations opposite the abbey, an exquisite single-arched bridge at Henllan, a few timber bridges, and, best of all, that nostalgic cry from Italy:

‘Llanthony!....

I loved thee by the streams of yore,

By distant streams I love thee more.’

That he entertained other men of letters - including Southey - at Llanthony is certain. That he wrote some of his lesser known works in the Prior’s house is probable. Yet in three years his wildly impractical schemes and prodigal expenditure brought the inevitable end.

Landor’s mother took over the estate and made him an allowance and he saw Llanthony no more.

Capel-y-Ffin is a little white chapel. Towering above it to the north-west is the magnificent green dome of Daren Llwyd, itself a “knob”, just as its prolongation leads on to the better known Lord Hereford’s Knob - ‘Y Tumpa’. On the right is the superb ridge which culminates in Hay Bluff, twin to ‘Y Tumpa’.

From the southern slopes of Lord Hereford’s Knob, a nant a mynydd (mountain stream) cascades down to meet another - the infant Honddu, which has carved a mile into Breconshire from Monmouthshire.

I met the vicar, who ministers to the good folk of Llanigon beyond Hay Bluff. Full of joy he was because, although he has a membership of six, on that afternoon his congregation numbered 14. We examined the porch inscription -

L.P.W.

I.I.M.

1817

We pondered over a small stone column which may have been part of the churchyard cross; we wondered why the eight ancient yews were planted in a semi-circle; we agreed that the circular churchyard edging a track-cum-packtrail told of immense age, and then, after the vicar had left for Llanigon, I spent an engrossing half-hour among the tombstones. From my notes I append two gems.

The first was ‘In memory of Noah, ye son of Noah Watkins, who died aged 8 years in 1738. This child said he would not take A hundred pounds in money for Breaking the sabbath, but keep it holy’. That is cut in the flowing script which we associate with the “Beggar’s Opera”.

I vouch also for the second which records the death in 1843 of Tom Jones -

‘Aged 1 year and 110 months.

When the Archangels’ trump

shall sound,

And souls to bodies join,

Millions will wish their lives

below

Had been short as mine.’

The monumental mason’s skill was above such sordid matters as numeration. Unable to convert ‘eleven’ into figures he combined 10 and 1 into 101 thus, Tom Jones aged 1 year and 11 months.

Roaming amid these quaint relics, I was suddenly halted by the lettering on two modern stones. Such perfection of shape and spacing proclaimed that Eric Gill had cut the inscription, and I was not surprised to hear from Mrs Gwynne Rees of Clomendy, that our great sculptor, while at Capel-y-Ffin monastery, had employed Charlies Stones as his handyman, and on his death had cut the inscription.

Back on the packhorse road, I took a last look at the white chapel. How did Kilvert describe it in his diary? ‘Short, stout and boxy, with its little bell turret, the whole building reminding me of an owl’ - and the two window-eyes and porch-beak fit that perfectly, while the owl has but one ear - the bell turret. That bell turret was the primitive prototype of the timbers at Cape-y-Ffin, like the more elaborate constructions of the later turrets, it allows the sound of the bells to escape, at the same time protecting the bells.

Like the Anglican chapel, the Baptist Chapel over the river at Capel-y-Ffin is whitewashed. A chimney, half in and half out of the building, runs up from the fireplace in the east wall. Great yews as old as the chapel tower over the many tombstones. Some of the tombstone inscriptions are in Welsh; one, in English, is surmounted by a charming profile cut in the stone of Susanna, wife of James Watkins, of Sychfra, Cwmyoy.

‘This lovely rose, so young and fair,

Was called by early doom,

Just to show how sweet a flower

In paradise would bloom.’

On the south wall of the chancel a stone is inscribed - ‘Messrs William and David Prosser brought the Ministry of the Gospel to their House in the year 1757. And secured this place for that sacred use for the time being.’

It would be an absorbing task, had one the time, to trace the growth of the Baptist cause in these remote regions, and to relate the little white house of God at Capel-y-Ffin with similar conventicles at Olchon, Llanwenarth and Abergavenny.

Inside the chapel, three steps on each side lead to the pulpit. Candlesticks on each side of the bible, the harmonium below, pews for the deacons and the congregation, the gallery on the north and east, lighting now by inverted gas mantles, and the air of reverent simplicity, conjure up in my mind the 200 years of worship in this ‘Babell’. For 50 of those years the Rev Morgan Lewis laboured here and he died in his 90th year.

Some writers find ‘comtemptable’ the architecture of our little Welsh temples. by some grace implanted in me when I was young I can move from the massive grandeur of Llanthony Abbey to two tiny white chapels of Capel-y-Ffin with no sense of anticlimax.