Cylchgronau Cymru

(Pont y Cwm). Here at Cam y gath Richard Fenton built himself a house. Much of the ground (says the late Ferrar Fenton, grandson to the Tourist) was covered bv large blocks of rock which had fallen from the cliffs, so he began operation by drilling and blasting these into pieces and dressing the fragments into building stones for his intended mansion. To prepare a site for that lie. by blasting operations, cut away the cliffs until he had formed a large alcove in which to place it, like a picture in a frame. This work turned out to involve an enormous cost. for having cleared away the hill cliffs by blasting solid rock to the level of the valley. he discovered he had only laid bare a stratum of rotten slate which would not carry the structure he intended to place upon it. But with his usual tenacity of purpose he decided to open a deep trench and sink down until he reached the firm basaltic rock, which his knowledge of mineralogy taught him must he below. I have been informed by my father that he had to sink to thirty, and in parts to fifty feet, before he came to that sub- stratum. When a bottom was found he filled in the trenches with solid concrete of hydraulic lime and broken rock, and upon that laid his foundation. By these means he produced his beautiful residence, which he named Plas Glynamel. Ferrar Fenton in his high-flown account of Glynàmel quaintly adds that the name signifies the vale of the winding brook. a poetical and accurate description of the locality" (ibid., xxv-vi). I may say that in my childhood about thirty years ago. the house used to lie called Glynamel and" Y Plas," but nowadays it is the fashion to call it Glyn y mel," as perhaps yielding more sense. Between Glynamel and the bridge. Pont y Cwm, there is a broad grassy flat called Mwsland,1 through which the Gwaun flowed in three channels, the northern 1 The name Mwsland appears also in Letterston and Punches- ton. It is generally written Musland." Doubtless it derives frem the old English max, swamp, moor ("Titus and Eliz. Evans MSS Vol. XXIII. p. 5). In confirmation of this. Canon Fisher kindly refers me to Chat Moss, the great peat-bog in South Lancashire. and Whixall Moss, Salop, in both of which the original meaning "f "soft moorland" is retained.