Welsh Journals

called Tycock, or the Red House, Montgomeryshire, once the property of this Residence'.7 A memorandum book in the Society's archives is more specific in noting that 'the District of North Wales became interested in this estate about the year 1676 as mortgagees for £ 500 in the names of Christopher Turberville and Edward Conway'.8 Elsewhere the same notes record that'large sums of money were lent by the old Society to the Duke of Powys, then a Catholic, and whose chaplains the Jesuits had for many years been. In the year 1751 a general balance was struck, and the sum of £ 1.306. 13s. 4d. was found due and converted into a principal debt of £ 4 per cent and charged upon the Duke's Oswestrey property. These money transactions were very probably the origin of our possession of the Tycock estate, Llanvechen, near Oswestrey, which formerly belonged to the Powis family. N.B. from some old papers. belonging to Fr. Redford of Powis Castle the above estate appears to have belonged to the North Wales Mission for a very long period, and to have no connection at all with the Powys family estates'.9 A further entry by Foley records the sale of the Ty Coch estate to a Mr Jones, the tenant, on 24 June 1873 for E3,300 with the observation that the Cambrian Railway had previously given £ 400 (by rent charge of £ 20 a year) for land taken for the Welshpool branch. The Jesuit connection began then in the time of William Herbert ( 1626-96), 3rd Baron and 1st Earl of Powis, created Duke by James 11 in 1689, the leading Catholic aristocrat of his day. The active sympathy of the Herbert family ensured the maintenance of Jesuit chaplains at Powis Castle until 1748, when the property passed to a Protestant branch, but even after that date the needs of local Catholics were met, first by the establishment of a Mass Centre at Buttington Hall and later by Benedictine monks in the parish of Welshpool.10 But the Herberts were by no means the only county family who remained Catholic: nearer Llanfechain the Prices of Llanfyilin were equally firm in the old faith." Is one then to regard the plaque as an object of Catholic piety, treasured as such at Llanfechain or at least having its local origin in one of the Catholic families of the district? Or is its presence there due merely to the chances of the antique trade? There is no evidence that the Jesuit connection with the parish was ever anything more than a financial one, nor any known local circumstances to lead one to expect such a find there more than anywhere else. Yet, without any special reason for its being there it does seem an unlikely objet d'art to find in such humble circumstances in rural Montgomeryshire. It is unlikely that any explanation will ever be forthcoming, if indeed there is anything significant to explain. However, the facts, relevant or not. seem intriguing enough to be worth recording here. J. M. LEWIS, National Museum of Wales "Henry Foley. Records of the English Province of the Society of Jesus (London IS7S), Vol. IV. 528. 'Residences' were the districts into which the English Province was divided. KI am much indebted to the Rev. Francis Edwards S.J. for this and other references. 9The note continues in Foley's hand: 'These papers are at Hornby Catholic Presbytery and have been lent to me by the Bishop of Liverpool. How they came to Hornby does not appear'. In fact the Liverpool connection must have been through Fr. Sebastian Redford. chaplain at Powis Castle, who became chaplain to the 7th Viscount Molyneux at Croxteth sometime before 1750. (cf. Trappes-Lomax. op.cit.,2\). IOCf Trappes-Lomax, op.cit. "Cf. E. R. Morris, 'Some Catholic families in Montgomeryshire'. Mont. Coll. LVIII (1963-4).