day. According to the deed referred to, the Tre Wledic would be on the north-west bank of Llyn Bedydd, in which direction "Highermost Grediton" stretched so late as 1739. Having had so many reasons for supposing that Cunedda Wledig had to do with the early Christianity of Maelor Saesneg, the name of this township may have an important bearing upon the point.

The next name is Pen Lle; but whether it belonged to the Croxton half of Maelor, there is little or no evidence to show. Closely connected with it was Llannerch Banna (the glade of the fulling mill). That glade is now in Halghton; and Leyland, writing before 1552, says, "Domoc dwellith in Halton", at a time when the Plas in Willington was his chief seat. To this, however, we shall refer afterwards.

Halghton (from aλs') would be, as it is still, the name of the next township, exactly bearing out its name from the fact that to this day the bricks that are made there turn white with an exudation tasting like soda. The drainage is towards the Wiche brook; and as the name is written anciently Halchdyn (din), it has been thought that there might have been once a stronghold there to watch and regulate the salt-trade at the Wiches. A large part of Halchdyn was, no doubt, an open common; and the name "Horse-Ms. Green", written in six or seven different ways, but properly "Horse Marsh", takes us back to the days when Giraldus. commended the horses of this district; and earlier still, to the old custom of crying the mare after har

vest.

1 See Giraldus, Description of Wales, lib. i, cap. 15: "It is to be observed that almost all words in the British language correspond either with the Greek or Latin, as vowp, water, is called in British dwr; aλs, salt, in British halen; ovoμa, enw, a name; πEVτe, pump, five; deka, deg, ten."

2 A.D. 1597. See Add. MSS. 9864, pp. 142-4.

3 Giraldus Itinerary, lib. ii, cap. xii: "In Powys there are most excellent studs put apart for breeding, and deriving their origin from some fine Spanish horses which Robert de Belesme, Earl of Shrewsbury, brought into this country."

4

* See Owen and Blakeway's History of Shrewsbury, vol. ii, p. 26:

At the south-west end of the Green stands a farm called the Rhostre House, which is, perhaps, descriptive of, or an alternative for, Halchdyn. No better pasturing for horses, whether as regards foot or flesh, can be found than a salt-marsh, as all may have noticed who know the sands of the Duddon or any similar ground.

The last of the earlier townships was called Trawstre (the town of the crossing-Trajectus), covering the present Willington, and close to the place where two important via crossed one another; one coming from Bangor, the other from Deva.

Beside the foundation of the church at Eglwys y Groes, we have here another proof of the zeal of the Bangor monks and of the beneficence of some British prince, probably Cunedda Wledic. The popular pronunciation of Llam (llan) bedoth obtained some colour of truth in 1836, when the church was built at the New Fens in Bronington, for it was then said that "there had been a church in Bronington before". This saying of the old men was the last faint echo of a tradition that has now quite died out. In the Gentleman's Magazine, however, for 1762, in a passage already referred to, Candidus writes, "tradition tells us there was once a monastery upon the Stimney Heath; and some fishponds which yet remain bear the name of the Friers' Ponds". As early as the year 1170 or thereabouts Hanmer had been made over to the Abbey of Haghmond, and in the chartulary of that house reference is made to the "Nonnen Crofte" (Nuns' Croft) at Hanmer, but no mention is made of the Bronington Monastery; and we therefore conclude that its date must be placed still further back, probably contemporaneous with the "That a breed of wild horses anciently existed in England is a fact well known. The herds of mares spoken of in a law of the Conqueror's, which ordains the tithe of colts, were probably of this description. They are alluded to in the reigns of Edward III, Elizabeth, and later; and recognised in the old Shropshire and Welsh custom of crying the mare after harvest." See also Hone's Every Day Book, vol. ii, col. 1163.

British church at Eglwys y Groes. That this was so the very situation of the place itself indicates, forest and morass even now holding their own, and at that early period presenting obstacles that none but the pioneers of a living Christianity would have cared to combat. On visiting the Stimmy Heath we find an Abbey Field with a mound in one part of it; not far distant an Abbot's Field and Stimmy Orchard; and beginning from the place now called Haughton, a tract of land that is called "Haughton Ring".

In reading the account of Croyland as given in the Monasticon, one notices many points that would apply to this Abbey, placed as it was in a situation not very dissimilar. "In the year 946, Turketul accompanied the monks in a visitation of the island of Croyland, ascertaining its boundaries, and causing the stone crosses set up as landmarks to be placed at a greater distance from the banks of the river than they had been, lest the force of the water should bear them down." One of these crosses still remained, last century, between Spalding and Croyland, with the inscription, "Aio hanc petram Guthlacus habet sibi metam." Applying this rule here, we may be able to get an approximate idea of the extent of Haughton Ring. No inscribed stones have been found on the line of the Ring, but there are some names of interest.

Beginning from the moated site now called Haughton, we enter upon Cronimos, and passing the Cae Nibblin Pools (perhaps Nov-lyn a pool to swim in), come to Usk Bank, though bank no longer, for the Cambrian Railway has swept it away. Tradition connects this bank, which is on the northern edge of Fens Moss, with monks who must have been of a very primitive sort. Then we come to the Roodee Moss (either from Rhos ddu-black moor, or Rood-ey-island of the cross), and skirting what is now the Fens Moss, but then Forest, reach the site of the Abbey; and further on, at the New Hall Farm, the two fields called the Grenoes (groes). Returning towards Llyn Bedydd we

4TH SER., VOL. VIII.

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pass the Friars' Ponds, the Maes Haughton Moor, the Cae Gmenit (cymynid=left by will), reaching finally the Cross-field, between Hanmer and Bettisfield, with its Tan y Groes (under the cross) on the south slope to Hanmer Lake.

With respect to the foregoing names, if this Abbey was, as we believe, a cell of Bangor, the name of Haughton or Althrey would be a natural one for Bangor monks to give to it. Its dedication is still preserved in the word Stimi, which is the S(anc)ti Mich(aelis) of chartularies. At one end of the heath is also still to be found a "Dragon"1 hostelry:

"Horrentique atrum nemus imminet umbra." (Æn., i, 165.) "Variis portenta Deûm terroribus obstant." (Æn., vii, 58.) So in Cumberland it is said that Cross Fell, from the top of which nothing but moor meets the eye to the eastern horizon, was originally called Demons Fell, till a cross was planted there by Austin. In the list of presents made to Croyland by King Witlaf in A.D. 833, one is "his gilt cup embossed with figures of vinedressers fighting with dragons", which he called his "crucibolum".

The Friars' (Frères) Ponds must have been so called by those who reckoned all monks as friars. At what date this Abbey and the Eglwys y Groes perished there is at present no evidence to show. Neither of them, probably, would long outlive the parent house of Bangor, destroyed in 607, and being built of wood, their destruction would be so complete that but for the names that have survived, we might have remained ignorant of the fact of their very existence. existence. In Halghton there

1 A Green Dragon, as this is, would seem to imply the intensity of loneliness in the depth of a forest and marsh, with unbroken silence but for the cry of the bittern and owl, the wolf and the wild cat, and other birds or animals of ill omen.

2 Josephus (Wars of the Jews, vii, vi, 3) speaks of a large sort of rue which is valuable on account of "one virtue it hath, that if it be only brought to sick persons, it quickly drives away those called demons, which are no other than the spirits of the wicked." On Oct. 31, 1661, P. Henry notes in his Diary," Colkins alias ignes fatui".

is a Cae Flame (fleam, A.S.,=flight), which may possibly commemorate the flight of the Bronington monks.

The following names, which still remain here, belong to the early history of the east end of Maelor, and the Tithe Map numbers are used:

The Cumbers Bank (W. cum-hollow). Cf. Combermere and Comber-bach. At the south point of Cumberland, Black Combe, with its horseshoe cum, rises to a height of 1919 feet.

Pwll Gwepra (Pwll Gwepiwr)-Mocker's Pool. The name, now lost, for a part of Hanmer Mere, beside which Davydd ap Edmwnt's house stood.

Tir y Gors-land of the fen. A name that is still found on the south side of the Great Arowry and at the east end of the Maes llwyn Lane.

Striga hollow road (cf. Ystrogul that which opens), the name of the lane leading out of Hanmer to the south-east, between high banks.

Arowry (apovpa ploughed land), the name of two hamlets to the north and south-east of the village, referred to in Archæologia Cambrensis (iv, p. 22) in proof of a Roman settlement near. In Josephus against Apion., lib. i, we read, "The land in which the Jews inhabit contains three millions of arouræ"; and in Wilkinson's Ancient Egyptians (vol. i, cap. v), “Each soldier, whether on duty or no, was allowed twelve arouræ of land (a little more than eight English acres), free from all charge"; and ii, 256, "The Egyptian land-measure was the aroura (or arura), a square of 100 cubits, covering an area of 10,000 cubits, and, like our acre, solely employed for measuring land. It contained 29,184 square feet English (the cubit being full 20 inches), and was little more than three-quarters of an English acre." The Welsh equivalent for aroura is erw.

564. Rhos Pool Field. This is at the east end of the Great Arowry, and preserves the memory of the Heath, which was enclosed in 1777. The racecourse ran round the Pool.

60. Cae Funna (ffynnon)=well-field.