Abbeycwmhir or Abbey Cwmhir ( cy, Abaty Cwm Hir, "Abbey in the Long Valley") is a village and

community A community is a social unit (a group of living things) with commonality such as place, norms, religion, values, customs, or identity. Communities may share a sense of place situated in a given geographical area (e.g. a country, village, ...

in the valley of the Nant Clywedog in Radnorshire,

Powys Powys (; ) is a county and preserved county in Wales. It is named after the Kingdom of Powys which was a Welsh successor state, petty kingdom and principality that emerged during the Middle Ages following the end of Roman rule in Britain. Geog ...

, Wales. The community includes the hamlet of Bwlch-y-sarnau.

The Abbey

The village is named after Cwmhir Abbey, the Cistercian

abbey An abbey is a type of monastery used by members of a religious order under the governance of an abbot or abbess. Abbeys provide a complex of buildings and land for religious activities, work, and housing of Christian monks and nuns. The con ...

built there in 1143. It was the largest Abbey in Wales, but was never completed. Its fourteen bay

nave The nave () is the central part of a church, stretching from the (normally western) main entrance or rear wall, to the transepts, or in a church without transepts, to the chancel. When a church contains side aisles, as in a basilica-type ...

was longer than

Canterbury Canterbury (, ) is a cathedral city and UNESCO World Heritage Site, situated in the heart of the City of Canterbury local government district of Kent, England. It lies on the River Stour. The Archbishop of Canterbury is the primate of ...

and Salisbury Cathedral naves and twice as long as that at St. Davids. It was a

daughter house A dependency, among monastic orders, denotes the relation of a monastic community with a newer community which it has founded elsewhere. The relationship is that of the founding abbey or conventual priory, termed the motherhouse, with a monaster ...

Whitland Abbey Whitland Abbey ( cy, Abaty Hendy-gwyn ar Daf or simply ; Latin, ''Albalanda'') was a country house and Cistercian abbey in the parish of Llangan, in what was the hundred of Narbeth, Carmarthenshire, Wales. The town which grew up nearby is now n ...

, and constructed at the behest of three sons of Madog, the then Prince of southern Powys. The first community at Dyvanner ( cy, Ty faenor, "Manor House") failed because of the intervention of

Hugh de Mortimer Hugh de Mortimer (c. 1100 – 26 February 1180/81) was a Norman English medieval lord. Lineage The son of Ranulph de Mortimer, he was Lord of Wigmore Castle, Stratfield Mortimer, Cleobury Mortimer and at times, Bridgnorth, Bishop's Castle a ...

Earl of Hereford The title of Earl of Hereford was created six times in the Peerage of England. Dates indicate the years the person held the title for. Earls of Hereford, First Creation (1043) * Swegen Godwinson (1043–1051) ''earldom forfeit 1051–1052'' Earl ...

but in 1176 the

Rhys ap Gruffydd Rhys ap Gruffydd, commonly known as The Lord Rhys, in Welsh ''Yr Arglwydd Rhys'' (c. 1132 – 28 April 1197) was the ruler of the Welsh kingdom of Deheubarth in south Wales from 1155 to 1197 and native Prince of Wales. It was believed that he ...

Deheubarth Deheubarth (; lit. "Right-hand Part", thus "the South") was a regional name for the realms of south Wales, particularly as opposed to Gwynedd (Latin: ''Venedotia''). It is now used as a shorthand for the various realms united under the House o ...

re-established the Abbey on land given by

Cadwallon ap Madog Cadwallon ap Madog was the son of Madog ab Idnerth who had died in 1140, while Idnerth was a grandson of Elystan Glodrydd who had died in around 1010 and had founded a dynasty in the Middle Marches of Wales, in the area known as Rhwng Gwy a Hafren ...

Llywelyn ap Gruffudd Llywelyn ap Gruffudd (c. 1223 – 11 December 1282), sometimes written as Llywelyn ap Gruffydd, also known as Llywelyn the Last ( cy, Llywelyn Ein Llyw Olaf, lit=Llywelyn, Our Last Leader), was the native Prince of Wales ( la, Princeps Wall ...

is buried near the altar in the nave. The abbey was burned by the forces of Owain Glyndŵr in 1401. At the dissolution of the monasteries in March 1537 only three

monk A monk (, from el, μοναχός, ''monachos'', "single, solitary" via Latin ) is a person who practices religious asceticism by monastic living, either alone or with any number of other monks. A monk may be a person who decides to dedica ...

s lived in the abbey. The Abbey was

slighted Slighting is the deliberate damage of high-status buildings to reduce their value as military, administrative or social structures. This destruction of property sometimes extended to the contents of buildings and the surrounding landscape. It is ...

in 1644, during the

English Civil War The English Civil War (1642–1651) was a series of civil wars and political machinations between Parliamentarians (" Roundheads") and Royalists led by Charles I ("Cavaliers"), mainly over the manner of England's governance and issues of re ...

, although some ruins still remain. There is a memorial stone to Llywelyn ap Gruffudd, the last native

Prince of Wales Prince of Wales ( cy, Tywysog Cymru, ; la, Princeps Cambriae/Walliae) is a title traditionally given to the heir apparent to the English and later British throne. Prior to the conquest by Edward I in the 13th century, it was used by the rulers ...

of direct descent, whose body is buried there.

Places of note

* The village church of St Mary was rebuilt in the

Neo-Byzantine Neo-Byzantine architecture (also referred to as Byzantine Revival) was a revival movement, most frequently seen in religious, institutional and public buildings. It incorporates elements of the Byzantine style associated with Eastern and Orth ...

style by Mary Beatrice Philips in 1866. She was a grand daughter of Francis Philips, who purchased the Abbeycwmhir estate in 1837 with money from the cotton trade. It replaced a church built in 1680. Soon after the Victorian church was built, the

Francis Kilvert Robert Francis Kilvert (3 December 184023 September 1879), known as Francis or Frank, was an English clergyman whose diaries reflected rural life in the 1870s, and were published over fifty years after his death. Life Kilvert was born on 3 ...

visited. * The Happy Union Inn is a Grade II listed building. The age of the building is unknown. The present owner is the 3rd generation of his family to run the pub. *

Abbey Cwmhir Hall Abbey-Cwm-Hir Hall is a neo-Elizabethan country house in the Welsh county of Powys. History The hall was built in 1833 for Thomas Wilson, a London lawyer, on the site of a Tudor style house built for the Fowler family, which was later owned by ...

is a

Georgian style Georgian architecture is the name given in most English-speaking countries to the set of architectural styles current between 1714 and 1830. It is named after the first four British monarchs of the House of Hanover—George I, George II, Geor ...

house built in 1833 by Thomas Wilson, a London lawyer who had purchased the 3000 acre Abbeycwmhir estate. It is open to the public.

References

External links

Village website
{{authority control Communities in Powys Villages in Powys Burial sites of the House of Aberffraw

The Abbey

Places of note

See also

References

External links