Welsh Journals

Pilgrim Routes to Strata Florida. (Paper read by Mr. S. M. Powell, M.A., Tregaron, at Strata Florida on July 30th, 1930.) A map of Cardiganshire on a small scale would not show the routes referred to accurately. Any reader who desires to follow the routes in detail can do so with the aid of the one-inch map or of a road-map. In England archaeology has been deeply concerned with the tracing of pilgrim routes. The chief reason for this interest is that Chaucer has immortalised the medieval pilgrimages, and, moreover, the famous route from Winchester to Canterbury over the chalk hills retains traces of the pilgrims' footsteps. There are, there- fore, in English several very interesting works dealing with the pilgrim roads. The following will be of great interest to any reader who wishes to pursue the subject: English Wayfaring Life" (Jusserand), Pilgrim Life in the Middle Ages (Sidney Heath), "The Pilgrim's Way" (Julia Cartwright), "The Pilgrims' Road (Elliston-Erwood), "The Old Road" (Hilaire Belloc). Mr. Belloc shows how the pilgrim road in many places coincided with an old British track which had been worn into the Downs many centuries before. It is probable that in Wales, too, the pilgrims followed tracks which had been already worn, and also prepared the way in many places for drovers and even motor-cars. I have not come across any detailed references to pilgrim routes in Wales except an attempt by Mr. G. G. T. Treherne of Carmarthen to trace the well-trodden route from Laugharne to St. David's. This appears as an appendix to Dr. Hartwell Jones's work, The Celtic Church and the Pilgrim Movement," and also in one number of the Magazine issued by the Carmarthenshire Antiquarian Society. In his book Dr. Hartwell Jones traces the pilgrim movement on a large scale, and he makes the remark that the crowding of pilgrims to Strata Florida is well-attested by the evidence of history, literature and archaeology For some time I have been attempting to piece together what evidence of pilgrim routes archaeology supplies in the form of place- names. The late Rev. H. M. Williams, Lledrod, had made some study of the subject, but does not seem to have left any manuscript bearing upon it, and so whatever information he had gathered has perished. That is a definite loss, because Lledrod is at a point where several routes converged upon Strata Florida. Since the information I have collected may also go astray, I have ventured to let this study go into the Transactions in a very incomplete and hypothetical form. Further research may serve either to confirm or to disprove