Cylchgronau Cymru

Chwiliwch trwy dros 450 o deitlau a 1.2 miliwn o dudalennau

parliamentary borough are shown on the map by Lt. R.K. Dawson (Plate I), which accom- panied the reports of the commissioners appointed under the Reform Bill of 1832, and was doubtless based on earlier original work by the Ordnance Survey. Lt. Dawson's map shows the parish church, dedicated to the seventh century Celtic saint and built on a rock outcrop overlooking a fording point of the river, and also the boundary between the two townships of Glynhafren Iscoed and Cilmachallt, with Glynhafren Iscoed extending eastwards across the Severn to include the western half of the town as well as the church. Glynhafren Iscoed's extension across the river is as puzzling as its administrative separation from neighbouring townships in the sub-manor of Arwystli Uwchcoed and its inclusion in that of Arwystli Iscoed. However, the township boundary as delimited in the 1828 enclosure award differs in detail from that drawn by Lt. Dawson, with the vicarage and glebe land being included in Glynhafren Iscoed, but the church and churchyard in Cilmachallt, and it is the enclosure award boundaries which are followed in this study. The award for Glynhafren Iscoed and for Cilmachallt, which treats the small township of Morfodion as part of the same intercommoning district as Cilmachallt, contains general maps of the townships on the scale of 6 chains to an inch, but also a more detailed plan of Llanidloes Town on the scale of 1 chain to an inch, and it has been possible from this information to draw maps of the town of Llanidloes based on early editions of the large scale plans of the Ordnance Survey to show both the pre-enclosure pattern and the enclosure award allotments.5 Whilst the Lower and Upper Greens extended across the floodplain on either side of the Severn, below and above the gorge section respectively (Fig. 1), the Upper Green also included patches of waste along the lower course of Nant Bryn Du north of the house called The Green6, where the horse fairs were held, and along both sides of the turnpike road to Aberystwyth to the south. There were smaller patches of waste on either side of Lletty Cochnant, or Nant as it was generally called, and others on the eastern edge of the gorge section known as Pen-y-Graig these having doubtless survived the infilling process then taking place with the growth of the woollen industry in the town. Although there are references to the pinfold at the northern end of the Lower Green and to a bridge at the bottom of the Upper Green in the court leet proceedings of Arwystli Uwchcoed, there is no mention in either the Uwchcoed or Iscoed court records of any persons being presented for 'squatting' or encroaching on to those lands which lends support to the view that they were indeed considered to be the common property of the burgesses, and that any infringements would have been dealt with in the borough court7. Moreover an incomplete series of borough court rolls dating from 1781 to 1818 have survived in which the two serjeants-at-mace present several persons who were not burgesses for buying yarn or skins on 'The Clerk of the Peace copy of the award is at the National Library of Wales. Montgomeryshire County Council Deposit. No. 50. Vol. Ill, and the parish copy is at Llanidloes church. loA deed of 1759 refers to 'a newly erected dwelling house called the Green house and a parcel of land adjoining called Cay'r Ddole in the township of Killmachar' (N.L.W. Glansevern 9974-5). A letter of consent of February 7th 1783 from the freeholders and tenants of Cilmachallt township permitted Mr. Arthur Davies Owen to build a stable or other building on waste ground adjoining the west end of the court before the house called the Green (N.L.W. Glansevern 13776). This land is again referred to in an indenture of April 6th 1810 (N.L.W. Glansevern 10442). A messuage of lands called The Green totalling 10 acres in the possession of Thomas Pryce is included in William Owen K.C. of Glansevern's claim form in connection with the Arwystli enclosure, submitted by his agent in 1819 (N.L.W. Glansevern 13772). William Owen was mayor of Llanidloes at the time of the enclosure. "Both Arwystli Iscoed and Uwchcoed records from 1784 to 1895 are in the N.L.W. Wynnstay deposit. Those for Uwchcoed from 1784 to 1819 have been transcribed by E. A. Lewis in Mont. Coll., 47, (1942), 183-207; and 48, (1944), 11-29.