Welsh Journals

Search over 450 titles and 1.2 million pages

are covered with rather rough slabs of local stone, one of which has an incised cross. Some of the tombs have their carved head-stones still in situ: these take the form of small crosses and are adorned with interlacing patterns of a Celtic type. On the west side of the cloister, and in line with the west front of the church, was the usual place for the Domus Conversorum, or house of the lay brethren, in a Cistercian monastery. The staircase near the west end of the south aisle, which led from the church to this building, may still be traced at Strata Florida. While the position of the chapter house, sacristy, and cloister have, through the researches of Mr. Stephen Williams, been clearly defined, the domestic buildings at Strata Florida have not been thoroughly excavated, and are somewhat difficult to trace. This is probably due in some measure to the fact that that the abbey suffered greatly, in the first place, through more than one fire-an accidental one through lightning in 1284, and again when burnt by the English soldiery in the Welsh wars of Edward 1. (1294). The abbey suffered perhaps even more through being used as a military post, when, during and for some time after the troubles caused by the rising of Owen Glyndwr, it was occupied by a garrison of archers and men-at-arms in the reigns of Henry IV. and Henry V. Long before the dissolution of the monasteries many of the build- ings seem to have been in ruins. But, notwithstanding the devasta- tion of fire and sword, in spite of the centuries of neglect and decay since the dissolution of the monastery, and although its stones must often have served as a quarry for farm and other buildings in the neighbourhood, enough still remains of the once stately church of Strata Florida to show that, like the other great churches of the same Order, its construction and decoration alike evidenced that ascetic ardour, that temperate good taste, that straightforward procedure and practical utility which characterised the Cistercian rule.