Descriptive Gazetteer Entry for ABBEY-CWM-HIR

ABBEY-CWM-HIR, a parochial chapelry in Rhayader district, Radnor; 6 miles NNW of the Central Wales railway below Penybont, and 6½ ENE of Rhayader. Post Town, Penybont. Acres, 10,965. Pop. 537. Houses, 96. The name signifies the Abbey of the Long Vale. The surface lies along the Clywedog, a tributary of the Ithon; and is a charming, fertile bottom, environed and overhung by picturesque wooded hills. A Cistertian Abbey was founded here, in 1143, by Cadwathelan ap Madoc; and destroyed, in 1401, by Owen Glendower. The property belonged, in the 17th century, to Sir Wm. Fowler, concerning whom it was said,-

There is neither a park nor a deer
To be seen in all Radnorshire,
Nor a man with five hundred a year
Save Fowler of Abbey-Cwm-Hir.

The Abbey church was 255 feet long and 73 feet wide but only a few fragments of it remain. The mansion of F. Philips, Esq., partly built with the stones of the church in 1816, stands adjacent. A Roman road goes up the vale past the Abbey, toward the valley of the Marteg. The living of Abbey-Cwm-Hir is a vicarage in the diocese of St David's. Value, £61. Patron, G. H. Philips, Esq. The church was rebuilt in 1867, and is in the Continental first pointed style.


(John Marius Wilson, Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales (1870-72))

Linked entities:
Feature Description: "a parochial chapelry"   (ADL Feature Type: "countries, 4th order divisions")
Administrative units: Rhayader RegD/PLU       Radnorshire AncC
Place: Abaty Cwm Hir

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