the nave, as I have before stated. It also presents a square turret crowned with a tall octagonal pinnacle, and a corbel table below the battlement, which are interesting, and well deserving of notice.

MAGOR CHURCH presents a genuine early English tower, with perpendicular alterations; the chancel is decorated; the outer doorway of the porch is elaborate, and has floriated ornamentation. Mr. Freeman has mentioned the timber roof in the chancel as worthy of notice, being a strange variety of the cradle form, describing a sort of pointed arch depressed at the top.

The church of ST. WOLLOS, which is the church of Newport, is regarded by Mr. Freeman as altogether one of the most curious churches in England, containing several features of great beauty. The nave, he says, "is a fine specimen of grand, though perfectly unadorned, Romanesque. The arcades and clerestory are quite perfect, five plain, round arches, of two orders, rising from massive columnar piers; the responds are square masses chamfered into an octagonal shape. Plain, narrow, round-headed windows, deeply splayed within, form the clerestory. No building better exemplifies the capabilities of that wonderful style, now admitting the most lavish gorgeousness of decoration, now standing in the most severe and unadorned simplicity, without in either case detracting in the least from its unrivalled solemnity and grandeur."1 Here we have a Nor

man clerestory in a church not of the conventual type. Of this description Mr. Freeman has seen only four examples: St. Wollos, Towyn, St. Peter's (Northampton), and Rothwell, in the same county. The western chapel is a plain early English structure, without aisles; and in it are some sepulchral effigies deserving attention, though much dilapidated. But the most remarkable part of this building is the doorway connecting the western chapel with the nave. It is of a character not commonly met with in England, and offers a superb example of Romanesque. Mr. Orlando Jewitt is no less enthusiastic on the subject of this doorway than Mr. Freeman, as will be seen by reference to a note in the Archeologia Cambrensis. He says it is a very curious specimen, and the only instance he recol

1 Archæol. Cambrensis, vol. ii, New Series, p. 193.

2 Vol. ii, p. 195.

lects of diminishing shafts. He assigns it to the latter end of the eleventh century.

CAERLEON CHURCH, in its splendid days, was the metropolitan see of Wales, and Dubricius, the celebrated opponent of the Pelagian heresy, was the first archbishop. The remains of a cathedral are now to be found, and the present church is of the Norman æra.

The church of USK is of the Anglo-Norman time, and was originally much larger than at present, and built like to a cathedral. The square embattled tower at the east formed the centre, and communicated with a transept and choir, now no longer to be seen; but evidences of their former existence are still visible. The church originally belonged to the priory, of which, as already stated, some portions are still extant.

The church of CAERWENT is built principally of hewn stones, and other materials of Roman structures. It once had two aisles. The tower, doorways, and windows, belong to the perpendicular period. The porch has a rich doorway ornamented with a four-leaved flower, and with a crossing similar to that of Magor. Mr. Freeman regards it as an intermediate example between the military and non-military classes. Two slabs were discovered in the churchyard, turned upside down, and have been carefully preserved by the rev. Mr. Steel. (See annexed cuts.) We have also been fortunate in having to represent a gold British coin found

in the vicinity of Chepstow, and in the possession of miss

Α

FWF

Lewis of Portskewitt. It is a variety of a class not yet satisfactorily appropriated, though the labours of our associate, the rev.Beale Poste, have been zealously devoted to this object.1

1 See Journal, vol. ii, pp. 12, 13, 23, et seq.

PENHOW CHURCH is situated close to the castle, dates its origin soon after the conquest, but has undergone many alterations, and now presents a motley specimen of architecture.

I have thus briefly drawn your attention to the various objects selected for examination in the county of Monmouth. Numerous and important as they are, we are not simply confined to them as the course of our inquiries at this Congress; for we shall avail ourselves of the opportunity of visiting also some places of deep interest in the neighbourhood, among which I may specially mention Llandaff cathedral, which, in the opinion of the learned dean Conybeare, although not rich and gaudy in its architectural beauty, like to the cathedrals of Salisbury, Lincoln, and Ely; nor of the imposing amplitude of Canterbury, York, or Winchester, can yet boast of supremacy, as regards elegance of detail and magnitude of scale, over every other cathedral in the principality of Wales. As Mr. Freeman will favour us with a description of the cathedral, with the history and antiquities of which he is so well acquainted; and as, under the kind direction of the highly respected dean of Llandaff, we shall enjoy every facility that can be afforded us for the examination of its structure, I forbear to trespass longer on your time. I have already, I fear, taken advantage of my position, and detained you too long, but the subjects for this Congress are so numerous, and present to us such various points for consideration, and under which it is necessary they should be viewed, that I thought a summary like that which I have now presented to you might be useful in preparing us for the inspection of those objects of antiquity for which we have assembled; for "I doe love these auncient ruynesWe never tread upon them but we set Our foote upon some reverend historie; And, questionless, here in this open court (Which now lies naked to the injuries. Of stormy weather) some men lye interred,

Loved the church so well, and gave so largely to it,

They thought it should have canopied their bones
Till Domesday; but all things have their end-
Churches and cities (which have diseases like to men)
Must have like death that we have."1

1 Webster's Dutchess of Malfey.

226

TERRITORIES OF THE ANCIENT

BRITISH

KING VORTIGERN ON THE WYE, AND
IN THE SOUTH OF WALES.

BY THE REV. BEALE POSTE.

[Read by the rev. Thomas Hugo.]

THE story of the monarch of old times of whom I now speak, is probably sufficiently known to those here assembled. He was notorious in having been mainly instrumental, as king of the Britons, in bringing in the Saxons; but his connexion as a local sovereign with the part of the kingdom in which we are now assembled,-the banks of the Wye, the picturesque regions of the south of Herefordshire and the adjoining parts of Wales,-may perhaps not be equally known, and may be touched upon with advantage. He was in the first instance, I repeat, a local king in these parts; but ultimately, by the election of the Britons, he became king of the whole country.

Thus much by way of introducing the subject, as it is not intended to enter upon the history of those times, which must be sought for elsewhere.

The points I shall briefly advert to will be these: (1) His original patrimonial territories, and some additions subsequently made to them; (2) The fortress in which, in the course of the political dissensions of the day and civil wars, he was ultimately besieged and destroyed; and (3) The Roman roads and stations which were either within, or the more immediately connected with his provinces. Now then for the matters of our detail; my authorities for the first part of which will chiefly be the various editions of the ancient British historian Nennius, including the celebrated Irish one published at Dublin not many years since, Cambrian literature, and a passage in the old Caledonian historian Boethius, at the point where he happens to cross our path and has materials to the purpose. The interest excited by the scenery, in this one of the most picturesque and romantic parts of the British isles, may

possibly be increased by knowing what has been transacted in these quarters in ancient times.

As a general view of his career; he is first known to us for his treachery to the family of the king his predecessor, and then appears as a successful competitor for the crown of Britain in those peculiarly unsettled times; but when he obtained the object of his ambition, his reign was only signalised by the misfortunes of his country, and, as far as we are informed, he governed with no other skill than to retain his seat on the throne. He was able in some measure to compass this point, having been king, with one interval of abdication, nearly twenty years; that is, from 448 to 454 and from 468 to 481.

The territories which he held from his ancestors seem pretty well ascertained. They are admitted on all hands to have been the two lordships of Erging and Ewas, lying together in the present county of Hereford, in what was in ancient British times a portion of the kingdom of the Silures, but which in later British times constituted a part of the kingdom of the Demeta; the extent being the southern part of Herefordshire abovenamed, bounded by Gloucestershire, or the Dobuni, on the east, and Radnorshire and Brecknockshire on the west. Erging appears to have been by far the largest lordship of the two, and an extensive district in the said south part of Herefordshire is still called Archenfield, which is very commonly supposed to be the modern form of the ancient appellation. Ewas, the name of which is still retained, lies west of this, and is about thirteen miles long by six broad. Both together the two districts formed a tract of country about twenty-five miles long by a breadth averaging ten miles. You see here the territories of a minor British chieftain, and their small extent doubtless prompted him to go into the military service of the British king of those times, whose family, as has been remarked, he superseded. It is true he acquired some further territory afterwards, as the districts of Built and Gworthigirnian, lying respectively in Radnorshire and Brecknockshire, which continued in his family for many centuries; but these may be rather viewed as acquisitions made after he came to the throne.

To continue. There were two Roman stations, which lay within the limits which have just been described, Ari