Welsh Journals

THE TRENACATUS STONE AT the Society's 1954 Summer meeting at Llanwenog, the Vicar, the Reverend S. Morgan, Rural Dean, referred to the disappearance from the parish of this historic relic of a remote age. One of the earliest Christian monuments in Wales, dating back to the fifth or early sixth century, it stood nine feet high by two feet wide, with inscriptions in Latin and Ogham, and was regarded as the most valued possession of the parish. The inscriptions record the words, in Ogham Trenaccatlo, in Latin Tren- acatus [h]ic iacitfilius maglagni ('Trenacatus son of Maglagnus lies here'), and probably commemorate some important chieftain or warrior. Competent authorities say that Ogham inscriptions show clear evidence of a Goidelic-speaking people. After the meeting it was decided to pursue the question of what had become of the stone, for it seemed strange that so heavy an object could have disappeared complete- ly. Many people remembered the stone in its last upright position on the right-hand side of the drive leading down to Highmead mansion. During the second World War Highmead was occupied for a long period by American forces who, it is believed, had given an assurance for the safe custody of the stone. In 1950 the mansion was bought by the Cardiganshire County Council and is now used for educational purposes. By kind permission of the Clerk to the County Council, one of the Council's foremen, in 1955, made a thorough search of the grounds but could find no trace of the stone. Thereupon, the Secretary of the Royal Commission on Ancient Monuments in Wales and Monmouthshire was approached and asked to be good enough to in- vestigate the matter further on the Society's behalf. He, on a visit to Cardiff, consulted the late Dr. V. E. Nash-Williams, Keeper of Archaeology at the National Museum of Wales, who stated that the stone was in the safe keeping of the Museum, which, prior to 1950, had only a cast' of it. When this good news was received it proved a great relief and satisfaction to those of us who had been troubled about the fate of the stone. In his book The Early Christian Monuments of Wales, published in 1950, Dr. Nash-Williams refers to it as being In the garden of High Mead House' (No. 127 in the Cardiganshire section, p. 102, with illustrations Fig. 101 and Plate 1). It appears that, when negoti- ations for the sale of the Highmead estate began in 1948, the solicitors who were acting for Mrs. Davies Evans, widow of the eldest son and heir to the estate of the late Col. H. Davies Evans, had stipulated that the Trenacatus Stone was not to be included in the sale but was, by their client's wish, to be handed over to the National Museum of Wales. In the late summer of 1950, in view of the danger from weathering in its exposed position, the Ancient Monuments Department of the Ministry of Works gave formal approval to its removal to the Museum. Dr. Nash-Williams had himself travelled to Highmead to supervise its transfer to Cardiff in a specially- chartered lorry. Thus happily ended the quest for this priceless monument, which the parishioners of Llanwenog and others, when in Cardiff, can view in the Main Hall of the Museum. Possibly a few notes about the stone's movements before arriving at its permanent home may be of interest. It was found in the fifteenth century under the ruins of Capel Wyl on Crug-y-Wyl farm, near Rhydlan Deifi, in the parish of Llanwenog, where one version says that it was fixed in the wall, another that it had fallen down and had become covered, in the course of centuries, by several feet of earth. The latter seems to explain better the fact that the lettering was as clear-cut and sharp as if it had been recently executed, so that the stone was regarded as one of the best- preserved inscribed stones in Wales.