Page:Archaeological Journal, Volume 7.djvu/38



following remarks were made during a residence of some months at Brecon, in South Wales. They are put together for the purpose of illustrating the accompanying representations of the remains of ecclesiastical architecture in that place.

My object is to bring these interesting remains to the notice of the Archaeological Institute; in hope that this notice may have the effect of bringing the existence and actual state of the remains to which it refers, to the consideration of the Society, in order that, if possible, such venerable relics may be preserved from further ruin and mutilation.

The town of Brecon, or Brecknock, as the inhabitants always call it, is delightfully situated on the junction of the Hondy (or Black River), with the river Usk. Brecon, from all that has been ascertained, can claim no greater antiquity than the middle of the eleventh century, the more ancient town having been three miles higher up the Usk, at Caer-vannau (which had by some been supposed to be the Bannium of the Romans ), which was destroyed by Bernard New- march, the Norman, who, not liking the situation, carried all the materials of the town of Caer-leon, which he had conquered, to the junction of the Hondy with the Usk, where he built a castle, round which those persons driven from Caer-vannau, and who were content to remain his followers for protection and other sufficient reasons, soon gathered, and this, by Johnes's account, is supposed to have been the origin of the present town. It was soon after this time that the walls and ten towers (some of which are still remaining, and originally surrounded the town) were built. Leland describes the castle as being very large, and having ten towers in the circuit of the wall, and a ditch, into which the waters of the Hondy could at pleasure, and for defence, be poured.

Bernard Newmarch is believed to have founded the Benedictine Priory at Brecon, which was a cell to Battle Abbey