Text this colour is a link for Members only. Support us by becoming a Member for only £3 a month by joining our 'Buy Me A Coffee page'; Membership gives you access to all content and removes ads.
Text this colour links to Pages. Text this colour links to Family Trees. Place the mouse over images to see a larger image. Click on paintings to see the painter's Biography Page. Mouse over links for a preview. Move the mouse off the painting or link to close the popup.
All About History Books
The Chronicle of Walter of Guisborough, a canon regular of the Augustinian Guisborough Priory, Yorkshire, formerly known as The Chronicle of Walter of Hemingburgh, describes the period from 1066 to 1346. Before 1274 the Chronicle is based on other works. Thereafter, the Chronicle is original, and a remarkable source for the events of the time. This book provides a translation of the Chronicle from that date. The Latin source for our translation is the 1849 work edited by Hans Claude Hamilton. Hamilton, in his preface, says: "In the present work we behold perhaps one of the finest samples of our early chronicles, both as regards the value of the events recorded, and the correctness with which they are detailed; Nor will the pleasing style of composition be lightly passed over by those capable of seeing reflected from it the tokens of a vigorous and cultivated mind, and a favourable specimen of the learning and taste of the age in which it was framed." Available at Amazon in eBook and Paperback.
Llech y Drybedd Chambered Tomb is in Moylgrove, Pembrokeshire, Prehistoric Wales Neolithic Burials.
3000BC. Llech y Drybedd Chambered Tomb [Map]. A free standing megalithic chamber, with earthfast stones supporting a substantial capstone: no traces of a mound are mentioned.
Description of Wales by Owen. Pentre Jevan Cromlech [Map]
Another thing worth the noting, is the stone called Maen y Gromlech upon Pentre Jevan land,
It is a hugh and massive stone, mounted on high, and set on the tops of three other high stones, pitched, standing upright in the ground, which far passes for bigness and height, Arthur’s stone , in the way between Hereford and Hay or Lech yr Aft, near Blaen Porth in Cardiganshire, or any other that ever I saw saving some in Stonehenge, upon the Salisbury Plain called charca gigantum being one of the chief wonders of England.
The stones whereon this is laid are so high that a man on horseback may well ride under it without stooping. The stone that is thus mounted is 18 feet long, and 9 feet broad, and 3 feet thick at one end, but thinner at the other; and from it, as is in apparent since his placing there is broken a piece of five foot broad and ten feet long lying yet in the place; more than 20 oxen would draw.
Doubtless this stone was mounted long time since in memory of some great victory of the burial of some notable person, which was the ancient rite for that it had pitched stones standing one against the other round and close to the huge stone , which is mounted high to be seen afar off, much like to that is written of the burial of the patriarch Jacob or such notable thing, but there is no report or memory , or other matter to be found of the cause of the erection of this trophy. They call the stone Gremlech but I think the true etymology is Grymlech the stone of strength, for that great strength was used in the setting of it to lie in sort as it does, There are other stones in 3 or 4 other places in the county adjoining as Lech y tribedd [Map] near Riccardstone and one [Carreg Coetan Arthur Burial Chamber [Map]] in Newport near the bridge; another beneath town, but not comparable in bigness or in standing so high.
Become a Member via our 'Buy Me a Coffee' page to read complete text.
An Historical Tour through Pembrokeshire. Call on my friend John Evans, Esq. of Glastir, and in company with him and a guest of his, the Reverend Mr. Owen, who was then on a visit to his native country after an absence of twenty-one years, ride to see Llech y dribedd [Map], one of the most perfect of that species of druidical relics called Cromlech we have in the county, with a representation of which, from the fine pencil of Sir Richard Hoare, the frontispiece is enriched. It is supported on three upright stones of no great height; there was another stone, as is frequently seen but not in contact, overturned. The incumbent stone is not so flat as usual, being of immense bulk, and about forty feet in circumference, nearly round, and its mean thickness from three to four feet. The stone is of a very peculiar kind, being of a blueish colour, very hard, yet yielding a little to an edged tool; the south-east side of the stone being superficially marked all over with initials of names for these two hundred years, and one corner worn down into a perfect hone by the shepherds. Mr. Evans, my Cicerone, who is the proprietor of this venerable relic, with a zeal which does him honour, takes great pains to preserve it. At the west end of the field in which it stands towards the sea, I pass a stone called Maen y tri thivedd, or the stone of the three heirs, the possession of three different men having met there.
Archaeologia Cambrensis 1844 Pages 129-144. That of A represents Llechytribedd [Llech y Drybedd Chambered Tomb [Map]], or the Stone of the Three Graves. Its capstone, 7 feet 10 inches by 7 feet, and about 4 feet thick, is of unusual thickness. A reverse view, from a sketch by Sir B. Colt Hoare, is given as a vignette by Fenton. There was formerly a fourth stone lying near it, but now lost. This was, no doubt, the stone that closed the entrance, and therefore independent of the capstone.
Archaeologia Cambrensis 1847 Page 373. In the parish of Nevern, near Newport (Trevdraeth), Pembrokeshire, there are two magnificent cromlechs, namely,
1. Llech y Drybedd [Map], about two and a half miles north-east of Nevern church, on Tre Icert farm. It is supported upon three short upright stones. he incumbent stone is of a bluish, or a hone-colour, hue, and knives and penknives are sharpened upon it. It is about forty feet in circumference, and its thickness from three to four feet.
The vignette in the title-page of Fenton's History of Pembrokeshire, is a drawing of it by the late Sir Richard Hoare; but there instead of the incumbent stone dipping north-west, it dips south-east.
In a field on the west there is a stone called Maen y tri-etivedd, the stone of the three heirs.
2. Coetan Arthur, on Pentre Ivan farm [Map], about two and a half miles south-east of Nevern church. Mr. Fenton says, that Sir Richard Hoare thought the cromlech, or temple, (?) at Pentre Ivan, surpassed in size and height any he had seen in Wales or England, Stonehenge and Abury excepted. It was formerly in a circle of rude stones, one hundred and fifty feet in circumference.
The incumbent stone rests upon two of columnar form, tapering to a point, with an intermediate one, which does not quite reach the south end. The most elevated supporter is above eight feet high, the lowest seven feet. The top stone is of immense size, and much thicker at one extremity than the other. It is eighteen feet long, nine feet broad, and three feet deep at the heavier end.
Archaeologia Cambrensis 1872 Pages 81-143. Cut No. 6 represents the cromlech Llech y Dribedd [Map], which stands two miles and a half to the north-east of Nevern Church. It has been described by Sir Gardner Wilkinson in the notice already mentioned. The capstone 1s nearly 8 ft. long, and from 3 to 4 thick, having, according to Fenton, a circumference of nearly 40 ft, Its three supporters vary from 3 to 4 ft. 8 ins. A fourth stone lies beneath it, and had assisted in forming a side of the chamber; but had not, in all probability, ever supported the capstone.