Cylchgronau Cymru

Old Roads in the Parish of Caron. By R. ISGARN DAVIES. IT is my privilege to call your attention to some of the ancient roads obtaining on the highlands of the parish of Caron. These tracks hardly merit the name of roads in this petrol age; but they served the purpose for which they were intended when pack-horses were the most common means of transport between one part of the country and another. Much has been written about the Roman Road that intersects the adjoining parish of Llanbadarn Odyn, but we are apt to forget the labour of the Abbots of Strata Florida, who worked strenuously in later ages to provide some means of communication between different parts of their great estate. One of the roads to which I call attention is no doubt the work of those who lived at the Monastery on the banks of the river Teifi. This road, or rough track, can be seen crossing the mountain that forms the watershed of the Teify and Towy. Being in a bleak and isolated part, travellers are few and mostly on horseback. Only once during the past 150 years, as I managed to find out, a funeral went over this road towards the Great Abbey. That rustic procession, carrying the remains of an elderly woman, had seven miles of mountainous journey to traverse. The road runs for several miles along the earthwork known as Cwys yr Ychain Bannog. Cwys yr Ychain Bannog was the line of demarcation for ten miles between the Lordship of Caron and the property of the Abbots of Strata Florida, and however old it is, there is ample evidence that this ancient road, from Ffrwd ar Gamddwr to the Abbey, is older. The Abbots of Strata Florida were the owners of several hundred acres of land at Ystrad Ffin in Carmarthenshire, and this road, no doubt, formed the connecting path between the Abbey and the Chapelry at Ystrad Ffin. In addition to being a sort of highway to the pious community of the Monastery, it was over this road that the sparse dwellers of a wide district drove their cattle to the annual fairs that were held first near the Old Abbey. Not far from this road, and almost parallel to it, another ancient road is to be seen. Some time ago a party of antiquaries from Tregaron, led by Mr. S. M. Powell and Mr. Ezer Jones, went to investigate its construction and dimensions. It is entirely on land that belonged to the Abbey, from one hill to another at an altitude