Welsh Journals

The Commissioners are certainly right about {Bwlchyrheol it is always so pronounced still. It does adjoin the road from Llanyre to Newbridge (probably an old one) and just at a point where the road crosses the ridge and so probably forms a notch," when viewed at the correct angle from any distance. Of f^hosclawdd there is now no sign though it is so marked in the Tithe map there is some local tradition of a paved way as the Commissioners say but this is not to be found and if it still exists anywhere it would be most likely within Lletty wood, through which it passed, if it went for any distance. There is nothing to remark about No. 460 Q air eg Llwyd. There remain Nos. 453 Woodcastle and Castell Bach and 458 Caeruin. To take the latter first, we have here a good instance of the value of this examination of these old maps. This spot turns out to be in the field adjoining No. 38 on our schedule, and called in the Tithe map Cae Cnap, Cae Cnap is the site of the present Cerrigioes farm house but this is a new building since the Tithe map. The old site was a short way off to the N.E. Nevertheless the name certainly applies to this Cnap because even a cursory glance at it is enough to show that it has on its summit some large stones arranged, as if for the base of a Stone Cross. The Yew tree field close at hand seems to support the suggested character of the Cnap. At all events it would seem well worth while, with the owner's consent, to prove the theory with the spade. The remaining item in the Report of the Royal Commission is their No. 453 Woodcastle and Castell {Bach. The Paragraph refers to a field called Camp which we found in the Tithe Schedule and noted, and it also refers to a circular enclosure with slight traces of a low rampart surrounding it, as "in all probability occupied by a small defensive post." The paragraph rather leads one to imagine that these various places are all close to each other whereas Castell Bach is 450 yards west of Woodcastle, and the enclosure is over 600 yards East of the same. The nearest point of the field called' Camp is some 140 yards N.N.E. of the enclosure and it may be noted that the fields abutting on the enclosure, have no names in the Tithe map except the one between it, and Camp, which is called Caenewydd. There is said to be reference in Welsh History to fighting having taken place near Woodcastle, and across the Ithon to the S.E. of it at Bwlch Bryn, etc., in the Parish of Disserth. On the other hand the "traces of a low rampart" which the Commissioners saw were un- doubtedly the remains of a bank, erected to plant a quick hedge round the plantation, when it was first formed in 1881. This is within living memory, and competent observers found no rampart of any sort prior to that. There seems no doubt that the Commissioners were quite wrong about this enclosure. But even so the name of the field called