Welsh Journals

Search over 450 titles and 1.2 million pages

THE MONUMENT TO SIR GEORGE CORNEWALL LEWIS AT NEW RADNOR THE following is an extract from the Illustrated London News dated the 10th December, 1864, reproduced by permission of the London Electrotype Agency, Ltd., as sole agents. The inauguration of a monument to the late Sir George Cornewall Lewis in the little town of New Radnor, in which neighbourhood his country seat of Harpton Court is situated, took place on Wednesday week. The engraving on our front page, from a photograph by Mr. Barrar of Kington, Herefordshire, represents the structure which has been erected on a triangular grassplot at the junction of three high roads just at the entrance to New Radnor, on the eastern side of the town. It had been originally intended that the site of the monument should be on a mound, called the Castle Hill, which over- looks the road but the workmen, in digging there for a foundation, came upon the ruins of Old Radnor Castle, with which it was thought best not to interfere. The architect of this work is Mr. John Gibbs, of Oxford, who is likewise the architect of the Memorial Cross at Banbury, the monu- ment to the Prince Consort at Abingdon, and of that to Shakespeare at Stratford-on-Avon. From his design, and under his superintendence, the monument at New Radnor has just been completed by Mr. Mansfield. It is some- what after the fashion of the Eleanor Cross, and is built mainly of Box ground stone. It is 77 ft. by high 25 ft. in width at the base, and is octagonal in form. It comprises three distinct stages. On the front next the base is the following inscription :­ Radnorshire to her most distinguished son, Sir George Cornewall Lewis, Bart. Died 1863.' Under this inscription there is a medallion portrait, in marble, of the late Baronet; and on the second stage above it, in four recesses,