Page:Archaeological Journal, Volume 1.djvu/137

Rh are small in size, and scattered in arrangement:—the parishes are not small, but the houses lie far apart from each other, and the district, though well cultivated, has on the whole a wild and bleak appearance. It forms the most easterly portion of the island, and is easily accessible to visitors of all kinds: it contains the frowning feudal castle of Beaumarais, and the beautifully secluded retreat of Penmôn Priory; it is washed by the blue strait of the Menai on the one side, and the stormy inlet of Traeth Coch (Red Wharf Bay) on the other:—so that for many reasons there can be little hesitation in recommending its mediæval remains to the notice of modern antiquarians.

It is the opinion of the learned and acute Henry Rowlands, author of the Mona Antiqua Restaurata, that the earliest ecclesiastical edifices erected in Anglesey (and indeed in Britain) were cells or hermitages, built by the first professors of Christianity who settled within its limits:—that to such cells small chapels, or places of prayer, were attached; and that the people, resorting thither for spiritual instruction during the lifetime of the holy founders, continued to regard them as sacred spots after their decease, and, either immediately or ultimately, converted them into churches under the name or invocation of the holy men, whether canonized by proper authority or consecrated by popular opinion. There is much probability in this hypothesis, when the local peculiarities of Anglesey are taken into consideration:—and it is strengthened, not only by tradition, but also by several circumstances connected with buildings of this class, in other parts of Wales as well as in the island. It is not to be expected that any of these original cells are now to be found standing, though the contrary cannot perhaps be affirmed; but there is such a similarity in the construction of many churches here, and their history generally tallies so well with the suggestion of the author named above, that it may be received as a good starting-point of Cambrian antiquarian doctrine.

One of the local circumstances corroborative of this view of the case, is that the earliest churches still extant are of that small simple form which might have been expected had they been built for the use of a single holy man and a few followers.

The original form of the Anglesey churches seems to have been that of a small oblong edifice from thirty feet by ten feet to fifty feet by twenty feet internally. These would hold about fifty or a hundred persons, and perhaps in early times