1966 The Great Forest of Brecknock 15285KB - Pant-y

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THE
GREAT FOREST
OF BRECKNOCK
A FACET OF BRECONSHIRE HISTQRY
WILLIAM REES,
M.A., DSc., F.S.A.
(Professor Emeritus in the University of Wales).
How many of us following the main road over the pass at Storey Arms or across
the divide between Cray and Swansea, have given thought to the fact that this
wide extent of mountain and moorland extending throughout south - west Breconshire was at one time good hunting country where herds of deer roamed the hillside or browsed in secluded glades, maintained in being by our Norman lords for the
sake of the sport. Little imagination, indeed, is required to picture the hounds in
full cry along the open slopes of the hills in pursuit of the stag on the days of the
Great Hunt. It was to cater for the hunt* that this extensive region, covering well
over 50 square miles of country, as far as the further sources of the Usk, was created
a "Forest" to form a great reserve for. game, within which area the most stringent
laws were in operation for their protection. During the last century and more, the
area has been given over to sheep-rearing on a vast scale, but the ..transfer from
deer to sheep has come by no sudden change but by the slow process of growth in
the economy.
It is the story of this region that I. here attempt to unfold, its privileged position
as "Forest" in relation first to the lords of Brecon and later to the Crowri, conflicting
with the interests of the local inhabitants in the matter of common of pasture, so
vital an asset in the lives of the generations who have dwelt within the Forest
boundaries. The issue was somewhat arbitrarily resolved by the Acts of Enclosure of
1815-18, but we today can sympathise with, and learn much from, the struggle of our
forefathers to maintain their right of commonage inviolate.
The present paper, based on a lecture to the Brecknock Society, was prompted
by the Rev. J. Jones-Davies who has shown the greatest interest in the subject and
has given freely of his assistance at every stage. I am indebted, too, to Mr. D. W.
Price of Nantyrharn, for permission to examine documents in his possession, and to
Mr. Ferguson of Cwmtbf, and to the late Mr. D. R. Evans of Llanilltyd, for assisting
me in details of more recent memory. No treatment of the subject can ignore the
contribution made by Mr. John Lloyd in making available in his volume, "The
Great Forest of Brecknock," much record evidence bearing on the Forest, together
with a map of the final enclosure of 1819 drawn from the Report of the Commissioners in that year, many copies of which map have survived. Notes from this work
and from the record of certain of the legal proceedings which have been published
from time to time by Mr. Dewi Davies in the "Brecon and Radnor Express" have
stimulated much local interest in the subject. I am deeply grateful, as ever, for the
help in this connection I have received from my wife.
WILLIAM REES.
[Page Two]
Tfie Great Forest of Brecknock
Forests and Commons :
The Great Forest (Fforest Fawr), that tract of mountain and moorland which
extends over the major part of the south-west of the County of Brecon, has frequently
given rise to question as to the origin of its name, conjuring up, as it does, a picture
of wide areas of forested land where today is treeless waste given over to rough
pasturage interspersed with wooded valleys. The picture of dense forest belies the
origin of the name and few, possibly, are familiar with the singular and complex
part which the Great Forest has played in the history of the County or, indeed, with
the disruptive influence which it has exercised during the centuries. The subject of
the Forest is not unrelated to the parallel one of Common land which, of late years,
has again become a live issue, arising out of measures taken during the Second
World War for the production of food in the national interest. It was with a view
to the more efficient use of our unenclosed and untilled acres that the matter of
Common land was referred to a Royal Commission for investigation. The Commission considered the question primarily from the standpoint of the legal interpretation of Common land as it has come to be regarded in modern times. Here,
however, is something more than merely a legal problem concerning existing use
or ownership of what was formerly community land and, in this deeper community sense, the Report of the Commission is somewhat disappointing. Nor does
the Report offer any explanation of the vast extent of Common land in Breconshire,
or of the distinctive nature of the problem as presented in the case of the Great
Forest, regarding it only as one of the major Commons.
In contrast with the great area of Forest - more extensive thap in any other
county in Wales - are the scattered remnants of the true Commons which had
their origin in the colonisation and occupation of the primaeval waste by the early
village communities, or tribal families, in the process of settlement and clearance
for cultivation. The fringes of these clearings and the surrounding virgin waste
were left free for communal grazing, each household having, in addition to its
share of the cleared land, the right to send its stock, in common with its fellows,
to pasture in the adjoining woods and wastes. These rights, therefore, were based
on usage, this a t a time when uncleared land, unoccupied, unclaimed, and
possessing little value in the modern sense, far outran the requirements of the
limited population, concerned, in their isolated groupings, not to produce a surplus
for market, but to provide only for their day to day needs. With the passage of time
and with the growth of population, the process of clearing, or assarting, gradually had
the effect of reducing the waste. By today, only relatively inconsiderable areas
IPage Three]
of uplancf and uncultivable land remain, while the divorce of a large proportion of
the population from agricultural pursuits h a removed the need for dependence on
the ancient rights of pasture.,
A "forest," as distinct from this more spontaneous growth of land held in
common, was a zone of privilege specially created, the right to create the same
being vested in the Crown. A ".Eorest" in its historic and legal sense implied, not
so much a region of woodland but a reserve for game, and the presence of woodland was but incidental to its purpose, though rights of common already existing
within the area at the time of its creation continued to be respected. Such was
the importance attaching to the hunt in n-ediaeval days that the "forest" was made
subject to exclusive Forest Law, administered by special Forest officers and in
Forest courts. Primarily, the forest administration was concerned with the maintenance and custody of the game, the Forest or Game Law being especially severe
for the protection of the deer - the Red Deer,the Roebuck and the Fallow Deer.
The introduction of these hunting preserves of privileged status is usually regarded as an innovation of the Norman Conquest, but similar regions of Forest
existed in England during the last century of Anglo-Saxon rule, certainly as early
as the reign of Canute, whose Charter of the Forest in 1016 expresses the exclusive
right of the kings to the possession of hunting preserves within which the law of
the forest operated in all its stringency. The system was adopted in its entirety by
William the Norman and his successors and it is possible that it is the Northern
kin&, Norse and Norman, who in this regard first staked out the royal claims.
Shortly after the Norman Conquest many Crown forests came into being - the
Forests of Richmond, Epping, Dean, the New Forest and others. The great Palatine
Earldoms, too, Lancaster, Chester and the Bishopric of Durham - only lightly subject to the Crown and almost royal in their powers - followed the lead of the
Crown, but, in general, in England, the powers of barons and knights, in feudal
subjection to the Crown, did not extend to the creation of "forests" or the establishment of special Forest Law, though such lords could declare a "chase," or reserve
for hunting but could not set up Forest courts. Hence the distinction which continued to exist between "forest" and "chase."
A traditional love of hunting, too, is reflected in the household of the Welsh
kings. Attached to the royal Court were the Pencynydd (the Chief Huntsman) and
the Hebogydd or Falconer, each accorded a privileged place at the royal table during
the feasts of the Household and enjoying special emoluments by virtue of their office.
Huntsman and Falconer claimed a proportion of the skins of the chase for leashes
and jesses and, during the hunting season, they were absolved from liability in
the event of any legal action being brought against them. At the close of the season,
it was customary for both officers to go with their hounds and hawks on cylch or
circuit, imposing themselves on one or other of the king's taeogtrefydd or serf
villages which was compelled to maintain them and their charges throughout the
period of their stay. This placed a heavy burden on any village so charged, a
burden made additionally onerous by the fresuent abuse of the custom by the
[Page Fowl
officers. After the conquest the service was continued by Norman lords in Wales in
the form of the cylch or circuit of the Foresters or the cylch of the Falconers, the
villages being called upon to provide such delicacies as the tafodhesp, or sheep's
tongue, for the hawks. The sum of ~'0s.which continued to be paid as a rent by
the tenants of the township of Yscirfawr long after the Conquest, even in
Elisabeth's day, under the name of blawd y cwn (the dogs' meal), doubtless had its
origin in a custom originally paid in kind by the tenants on the occasion of the visit
of the lord's huntsman with his dogs on cylch. On the cessation of the practice of
going on circuit; the service was commuted to a money payment and levied by the
lords as a rent, a sum which, at Yscirfawr, was said to be equivalent to the original
demand of 48 'crocks' of oatmeal, worth about a shilling a 'crock,' the 'crock' being
equal in weight to about three pecks.
Like the Normans, the Welsh maintained close seasons for hunting, viz., in
Autumn, from the Feast of St. Curig (June 16th) to December 9th, during which
time the herds were reduced for the supply of winter meat for the Household, and
again in Spring from the 1st to the 9th of May. The free Welsh subjects of the
king could hunt on their own lands and in the wastes, observing the close seasons,
but if, by chance, the king's hunt were carried into their neighbourhood, they were
expected to wait "until the king's huntsmen shall thrice let free their dogs."
Beyond this act of courtesy, Welsh kings had no special rights in the open waste
nor did they create a special area as a game reserve or "forest."
Creation of the Forest of Brecon :
After the Norman Conquest of England in 1066, Norman lords penetrated into
parts of independent Wales, overcoming certain of the Welsh kings and setting up
private lordships of the March of Wales, more or less free of interference from the
English Crown. The defeat of the Welsh rulers placed them almost in the position
of petty kings and, in exercise of the royal power which they had wrested from
the local rulers, they set lup "forests" in their lordships, with all the trappings of
forest organisation, in imitation of the Norman kings. When Bernard de Newmarch,
during the years 1090-93, crossed the border from Herefordshire, to defeat the last
Welsh ruler of Brycheiniog, Bleddyn ap Maenarch, he established within the
bounds of the kingdom the Norman lordship of Brecon, extending from the Herefordshire border to the upper reaches of the River Usk, with the centre of government for the lordship at Brecon Castle. The better agricultural land along the low
ground from Hay to Brecon and from Brecon along the Usk valley to Crickhowell
was partitioned by de Newmarch among his Norman knightly followers who, subject to him, set up their separate manors, the forerunners of many of our country
estates of today. In the present connection, however, we are primarily concerned
with the forest administration within the Brecon lordship as instituted by de Newmarch shortly after his victory, when he set aside the greater part of the 'upland
area of the south-west of the lordship as "Forest," to be retained as a great reserve
for game.
[Page Five]
No deiuments relating to the actual creation of the Forest of Brecon have
survived but early records make reference to the organisation of the great hunts
during the period of the residence of the lord and his household at the castle of
Brecon and fo the grant to tfie monks of Brecon Priory of gifts of the chase and
the tithes or tenth-part of the yield. By the 13th century there is reference to the
Great and the Little Forest, the latter doubtless a fragment of the former, leased
off at an early date to develop into a separate unit of forest. The Chief Forester
and his subordinates were responsible for the custody of the game and for the submission of the financial returns to the lord's Exchequer at Brecon Castle. Unfortunately the documents relating to the earliest customs and practices of the Forest,
such as those concerning the holding of the Forest Courts and the routine duties
of the Forest officers, have survived only in the barest outline, yet sufficient
remains to provide, with the aid of later records, a fairly comprehensive picture.
Clearly the mere act of the creation of the Forest, by the intrusion of arbitrary
authority into an existing social order, could not fail to have a seriously restrictive
effect on the lives of those who had the misfortune to reside within its bounds.
For the most part, however, the Forest consisted of extensive tracts of moorland
and waste interspersed with villages and hamlets in the more sheltered woodland
valleys, the inhabitants, by reason of their inclusion within the forest boundaries,
becoming subject to forest law and to the tender mercies of the forest officials. The
demarcation of the boundary was of the greatest importance, defining as it did,
the sphere of forest rule. Nevertheless, the boundary was not usually fenced nor
was the boundary easily recognisable, especially to a stranger, though landmarks
might be well known and possibly noted by periodic perambulations. I t was also
subject to alteration as when, on occasion, outlying portions of the region came to
be disdorested, for example, when a village within the forest purchased its
immunity from forest rule.
Boundaries :
The Great Forest of Brecon extended across country for a distance of some seven
miles from the remote western limits of the lordship along the upper course of the Usk
at the present county boundary, the line of mountains crossing the area forming the
watershed between the northward and southward-flowing streams. The boundary of
the Forest followed the main stream of the Usk from its source as far as the River
Camlais, then ascended that stream to continue over the ridge of St. Illtyd to the
River Tarrall, near Libanus, thence to Storey Arms, there to join the River Taff as
far as the crossing at R h ~ dIsha, to Nant Bennig and the upper reaches of Nant yr
Eira, thence to cross the moorland of the southern slopes of the county, omitting
the lower reaches of the southward-flowing rivers, the Hepste, the Mellte, the Nedd
and the Tawe, to reach the western boundary of the county on the Twrch and to
continue along the county boundary over the Carmarthen Van to reach the River
Usk again at its source. Though the Forest did not contain within it the high
peaks of the Brecon Beacons, it did include the broad extent of upland between
(Phge Six]
these and the Carmarthen Van, the intervening valleys, formerly wooded and sheltered, providing good cover for game. Here then was a region of close preserve,
the main purpose of which was to furnish a supply of fresh venison during the
winter season to supplement the dietidof salted meat obtained from the annual
slaughter of domestic animals, which, for lack of winter feed, were killed at the
"fall." In this respect the Forest, like the fishpond, the pigeon-cote and the rabbitwarren, had an essential place in mediaeval economy. (See Map I).
The care of the wild animals, particularly the deer, was the subject of much
concern, the seasonal reduction of the herds and their protection from disturbance,
especially during breeding-time, being a feature of successful keeping. There
was also the sport of hunting to relieve the tedium of winter days, the hounds being brought by the huntsmen from the English estates during the visit of the lord
and his household to Brecon Castle, the costs of the maintenance of the hounds in
bran and oatmeal figuring frequently as a charge on the lordship accounts. Hawking,
too. was commonly indulged in by both men and women, the nests of falcons and
of sparrow-hawks, especially in these western lands, being rifled to maintain the
supply of novices. or untrained birds, for the royal mews.
Not all the creatures of the wild held an equal place in the huntsman's esteem.
According to the Forest Law, foxes and wolves, which added nothing to the larder,
were not beasts of venery nor, by the later mediaeval period of the thirteenth and
fourteenth centuries, was the wild boar specially preserved for the chase. A similar
attitude was adopted with regard to the wild goat, the hare and the rabbit, the
rabbit being generally reserved for trapping or snaring in the coney-warren or
coninger. The hunting of any animal within the Forest by outsiders, however,
brought heavy penalties. According to Canute's Law, all wild beasts of the
forest belonged to the king, but the prize of the chase was the deer, particularly
the Red Deer. which was the true royal beast, the hunting of which by unauthorised persons was punishable, in the case of a bondman by death and in that of a
freeman by loss of his free status. Later, during the reign of Henry 111, there was
some relaxation under the Code of the Crown Forests of 1225, which stated that
"no man must henceforth lose life or limb for killing a deer but shall suffer
grievous fine or imprisonment, to be arrested or pursued or given over to the Court
of the Forest . . . If a man take a deer in the Forest, his body shall be arrested and
he shall not be delivered without the special command of the king." The full
machinery of the law must be mobilised for the arrest and punishment of the
offenders and if a deer be found dead or wounded, enquiry must be instituted
throughout the neighbourhood, anyone refusing to disclose knowledge of the affair
to be regarded as an aider and abettor. No mean person or serf living in the forest
could keep a greyhound, though a freeman was permitted to do so if the knees of
the dogs be cut in the presence of the official or the front claws removed, this
practice of 'lawing' being adopted to hinder speed of movement. Non-hunting dogs
such as 'veltures' could be kept in the forest without being crippled, also the type
known as ram-hund "which lies in the lap and offers no danger to game."
[Page Seven]
*
Even before the arrival of the Norman, the deer held a privileged place in
Wales. A stag in Welsh law was above the value of an ox and a hind above that
of a cow, while a king's hart (i.e., the Red Deer) in season was valued at 40 cows.
Two kinds of hunting dogs were used, both by the Normans and the Welsh, viz.,
the deerhound and the harrier, the cellci, for use in the coverts and the greyhound,
or milgi, for open coursing. The forest practices of the Crown tended to become
the model for the Norman lords in Wales, though the number and scale of the royal
forests naturally put them in a class apart, available for the use of the royal household in its progress through the Crown domains.
Many were the disabilities sufFered by dwellers in or near a forest. They were
very much at the mercy of the forest officers vested with arbitrary powers under
Forest Law and we hear much of petty tyranny and extortion, charges being made
on innocent persons in the Forest courts and tribute demanded by the enforced sale
of ale or other devices to extort money. A toll was generally levied on all strangers
passing through a forest, a levy which passed under the name of cheminage, but the
unwary traveller could find himself arrested on a charge of trespass even though
he might have strayed but a few yards from a road or path, though the track be illmarked or virtually non-existent, the unfortunate traveller being mulcted in a heavy
fine or forced to pay a bribe to the Forester. The straying of animals into the Forest
was a fertile cause of dispute, the animals being impounded on slight evidence and
released only on payment of a fine. This could be a grievous source of irritation
when we consider the absence of fences and, indeed, the uncertainty as to the
exact border at many points. The mere existence of a forest in a neighbourhood
served like some spider's web to bring resident and stranger alike into its toils.
Such was the unrest created by the abuses within the Forests that by the opening
years of the sixteenth century, during the reign of Henry VIII, on the eve of the
union of Wales with England, the Crown submitted to Parliament a Bill for the
dissolution of the Forests in the lordships of Wales, citing as its reason "the existence of unreasonable forest customs contrary to the law of God and man, for if
anyone who is not a yearly tributor should happen to be found by the space of
24 feet out of a highway in a Forest, then he would be forced by the Foresters to
forfeit all the money or gold found on him, or he could lose a joint of his hand,
unless he made fine to the Forester at his will and pleasure, contrary to all equity
and conscience."
Forest Officers and Forest Revenue :
The Great Forest constituted a separate department within the lordship of
Brecon, administered by the Forester subject direct to the Castle. In this connection we find the name of Richard Aubrey of Abercynrig who, in the fifteenth century,
held the office of Chief Forester, an office which brought him into touch with the
region where later he took up residence at Ynyscedwyn, near Ystradgynlais. Under
the Chief Forester were the sub-foresters - the Verderers or Agisters, the Rangers
or Regarders, the last-named concerned with keeping watch and ward and with the
[Page Eight]
care of the herds, heading off the deer into one or other of the local "hays" or enclosures in readiness for the hunt or preventing them from straying outside the
boundaries into adjoining lordships,>ready, too, to make arrests of poachers or any
raiders entering from beyond the boundary of the lordship. Defaulters, on arrest,
were brought before the Forest Court, held, perhaps, on some open site or at the
residence of the Chief Forester within the Forest, or, in the case of a more serious
offence, the offender might be taken to Brecon Castle for trial and imprisonment. I t
would be interesting to establish the site of the Court of the Great Forest. Castell
Ddu, at Sennybridge, is reputed to have been such a centre, but there is little
evidence to substantiate this. It is not unlikely that the Court would be held in the
vicinity of the Chief Forester's residence, and the semi-fortified enclosure known as
Castell Coch, situated at the junction of the Rivers Llia and Dringarth, near
Ystradfellte, in the heart of the Forest, may provide a clue to the site.
Hunting was but one of the many aspects of Forest activity. The Forest, if
administered with regard to possible revenue, could be made to provide a welcome
addition to the Exchequer, a fact which was not overlooked by the lord's officials.
Here the timber offered a potential source of income. There was the sale of the
dead wood for fuel and of greenwood for woodworkers and woodturners, licensed
for the production of wooden utensils for household use. Again the lopwood could
be sold to the charcoal-burners for the making of charcoal for 'use as domestic fuel
or for the use of smelters and ironworkers. The oak-bark for tanning and the
bracken, broom and rushes for thatching, too, could bring in a small return as also
did the wild honey to supply the place of sugar. Dwellers within the Forest had,
by long-established custom, the right to take sufficient timber to build their houses
and to make fences or hedges, customs which went under the name of housebote,
haiebote or hedge-bote, but they were forbidden to sell the timber. Nor should the
timber be taken without the knowledge of the Foresters and it was the practice in
certain forests for a Commoner seeking timber to announce his presence by calling
aloud or beating the trunk of a tree or by blowing a horn as a token of his intent.
The Commoners of the Great Forest had further established the right to lake turves
for fuel, to dig limestone and to burn the same for lime, even to sell the lime,
though this last was an unusual feature in most commons, for, in general, minerals
and quarries were reserved to the lord.
The officers directly concerned with the supervision of the woods were the
Verderers. Not that special care was given to tree growth in the modern scientific
sense, for the main aim was to exploit the existing timber. The Verderers were also
responsible for the collection of the pannage (or pawnage) dues, the Commoners
bringing their pigs, in Autumn, prior to slaughter, to feed on the acorns and beechmast and other of the forest products, paying at the end of the season a small sum
of a few pence per head. This payment in the variolus lordships, assessed on the
basis of numbers, passed under such names as garsanese, avesagium, wrintak, wormtak or plenotak. If the owner possessed a number of pigs, it was the practice of the
Foresters to take in payment one pig out of every five or out of every seven, the
p a g e Nlne]
+
pigs being brought at the end of the season to the Swinemoot or court held at some
central point where the Foresters or Verderers assessed and levied the pannage
due. The amount obtained f r o p this source naturally varied from year to year, except when the dues were "farmed" at a fixed sum. In the year 1460 the "farmt'
amounted to £40.
In addition to the timber, there was the herbage or grazing, the tolls being collected from the Commoners by the Agisters, two such officers being engaged i s the
Great Forest for the year 1354. Commoners attached to a manor or village in a
normal feudal setting had the right to turn their animals free of charge on to the
wastes of the manor and, except in cases of overstocking, the right to pasture was
without stint or restriction, in accordance with the rules of the manor court. The
Great Forest of Brecon, however, was the special hunting reserve of the lord and
while all tenants and residents within the lordship of Brecon had the right to send
their animals to graze in the Forest by virtue of ancient custom long anterior to the
Conquest, they were made subject to a charge of 3d. per head per annum for the
larger animals and 2d. or even Id. for the smaller, this in token of the lord's prerogative in the Forest. The lord himself made considerable use of the pasture of the
Forest, maintaining there a stud of horses and a vaccary or cattle-station under the
care of a stockman (l), the milk and butter being sent to the Castle. Entries on
the Rolls also refer from time to time to the despatch of herds of cattle from the
Forest, in charge of drovers, to the distant English manors of the lord, doubtless
for sale in the English markets.
The exercise by the lord of his power to declare a "forest" would seem to have
superseded the traditional claims attaching to the Commons which came to be absorbed within the Forest. It was probably by reason of the existence of those
Commons that tradition was so far respected that the right to common in the Forest
was retained, though made subject to a nominal charge, a form of commoning which
was known as Cyfrif (Welsh Cyfrif = number), the payment per head depending
on the number of animals participating in the grazing. It is interesting to note that
the right to common within the Forest applied to all inhabitants of the lordship of
Brecon and not only to those dwelling within the Forest boundaries, for the Forest
was the Forest of the lordship as a whole. This would exclude the lordship of Blaenllyfni (that portion lying beyond the River Llynfi, comprising Talgarth, Crickhowell and Tretower - converted into a separate lordship in the year 1207). It
excluded, too, the lordship of Hay and the lordship of Cantref Selyf, also the lands
of the Bishop of St. David's within the bounds of the lordship of Brecon. It included,
however, the whole of the remainder of the lordship with its sub-lordship of Penkelly, for which reason the residents of the parishes of Llanddetty, Penderyn
Ystradfellte and Ystradgynlais to the south and those of Merthyr Cynog, with Llanfihangel Nant Bran, Llandeilio'r Fan and Garthbrengy, to the north of the River Usk,
all had right of pasture for their animals in the Forest. Tenants of these outlying
(1) Mairarius; Welsh maer, a stock bailiff.
[Page Ten]
parishes, however, already enjoying rights of common in their own localities, hardly
found it rewarding to bring their animals so far from home and many refrained from
taking advantage of their right, leaving t h e field more and more to the "borderers"
or "brinkers" of parishes neighbourjhg the Forest and to the actual residents within
the Forest boundary.
By the 13th century, the Little Forest, lying between the Rivers Cray and Treweryn, had become detached from the Great Forest and was being administered
separately, those living within its boundaries being refused entry for their animals
into the Great Forest and vice-versa, although Commoners outside the boundary
retained the right to common in both Forests, the rate per head for the large and
full-grown stock being still 3d. at this early date and half that amount for young
animals. The collection of the numerous small payments must have entailed considerable labour for the Agisters, scattered as were the small flocks and herds over
the wide area of forest. Yet these grazing dues represented the main item of the
Forest revenue, the total paid into the lord's Exchequer from the Great Forest
amounting in most years to about £30 and from the Little Forest to about £2 to £4.
If we may judge from the receipts, the number of animals pastured in the Forest
fluctuated greatly during the difficult years of the mid-fourteenth century when the
Great Pestilence swept the country, reducing economic life to a low ebb. By the
middle of the fifteenth century, returns of £40 and £6 respectively were again being
recorded and by the end of the century sums of nearly £100 and of £6 13s. 4d. point
to the greater use which was being made of the Forest, indicating a more general
recovery. With the passing of the years it became increasingly the practice to let out
at "farm" the collection of the tolls, the office of Collector being let to the highest
bidder at the auction held at the High Cross at Brecon on the first market-day after
the first day of May annually. By this method of "farming2' the revenues, it was
open to the Collector to make what profit he could over and above the amount of
his bid, he himself undertaking the risk of loss. While the system served the convenience of the lord and guaranteed him a fixed sum for the agistments, the arrangement could react to the grave detriment of the Commoners, exposed as they would
be to more exacting collection, especially by an unscrupulous "farmer."
By the fifteenth century, great changes were coming over the lordships of
Wales, the feudal society of the past becoming less rigid with the spread of a money
economy. The havoc inflicted on the various estates by the rebellion of Owain
GlyndGr and the break-up of the great feudal families as a result of the Wars of the
Roses in that century also left their mark. The lordship of Brecon, like other of the
Welsh lordships, gradually ceased to function on the broad lines of the past when
the household of the lord had been accustomed to pay regular visits and the organisation of government was in full operation. As the family ceased to come into residence, the lordship was left increasingly to the charge of its officials. Hunting, like
other activities, declined and Forest administration continued merely for the collection of the dues.
[Page Eleven]
+
The Cr&n as Lord of Brecon :
The Brecon lordship, after, de Newmarch's day, passed by marriage to the Earls
of Gloucester and of Hereford and, later, to the Lords de Braose and to the Bohuns.
By the early part of the fifteenth century it came to the Stafford family. Henry
Stafford, created Duke of Buckingham in 1444, assisted Richard I11 to seize the
thrpne, afterwards defaulting, to suffer execution a t the hands of Richard who, in
1483, confiscated to the Crown the Buckingham estates, including the lordship of
Brecon. Richard, seemingly with a view to ingratiating himself with his Brecon
tenants, reduced the Cyfrif payments for grazing in the Great Forest from 3d. to Id.
per head of stock, and exempted from payment those tenants who lived in the parish
of Devynock which lay within the Forest, exempting them, too, from the payment of
cheminage, pedage, portage and other tolls, so to pass unimpeded through the Forest
with their carts and merchandise. After the defeat of Richard at Bosworth in 1485,
the lordship of Brecon was restored by Henry Tudor to' Edward, Duke of Buckingham, but on the attainder of Edward in 1521, the lordship; was taken over by Henry
VIII, to remain in Crown possession for some three centuries. At the time of its confiscation, the Forest of Brecon was described as being very large, giving a return in
herbage and pannage, bus such was the decline in hunting that the "Red Deer goeth
at large without keeping and without charge." Clearly, the lordship had suffered
much in the troubled years of Buckingham ownership, both by the reduction of its
revenue and the spoliation of the woods, especially when it was "farmed" to the
Foresters themselves. Not that the condition of the Forest showed improvement
under the Crown, for it continued to be administered much as before under a
skeleton system of officials, and the estate, too remote to share in direct royal
patronage, suffered further neglect. The deer had to fend for themselves and to
compete for the grazing with the flocks and herds of the Commoners. Much reduced, too, by raiding and poaching, the remnants of the herds dwindled and, by
the opening decade of the eighteenth century, the last deer had disappeared.
Throughout the period of Crown ownership the Great Forest was let on successive long leases, either to the Commoners or to private individuals who in turn often
"farmed'L out to others various of the items of Forest revenue. In %theyear 1619 the
Forest was placed in trusteeship for young Charles, Prince of Wales,, but after his
succession to the throne in 1625 as Ch'arles*I,it was leased for aLterm.ofyears to the
Earl of Pembroke who, in 1639, sub-leased'it to Thomas Morgan of Machen. This
seems to be the first occasion that a member of the Tredegar family acquired a
footing in the Brecon district. After. the Civil War, the Forest, with other of
Charles 1's estates, was taken over by the- Republican government; a Survey of the
Forest made in 1650 describing-it as8a great Common seven miles long,on which the
inhabitants of the Ijarishes of the loi.dship of Brecon (1) were accustomed to take
over the pasture, paying to the Government a single sum at "farm'? of £20 6s. 8d., the
(1) The parishes as mentioned in the Survey are Devynoclc, Llywel, Cantref, Llanfeigan, Llanddety, Penderyn.
Ystradfellte and Glyntawe.
[Page Twelve]
Forest Country. between the Fan Nedd and the Fan Llia.
Ollo\\113g the ':iiclent rnouni't~n trLicL ,iLro\\ the Forest along the r o d i o l l o ~ e de,~rlier
l>\ the Ronian., from the I3rccor1 G x r to the fort iit Neath)
7 1 1 ~above view loolci i~ortliivarcisalorlg t h e A l o n Llia toia;ards C \ v ~ nCa~nlalsand the
LTsk Vzrllej-, !he rorile ill t h e rliidriie ri!st;ulce rnarkeci by the Stalldini: Stone-rhc
Maeri Lila.
( A solitibry land~nitrko n tile hame ancient roitd where i t crosses the shoulder. of the Fan
Nedd. 'The road was alreiidj i i l existence ;i thousitnd years before the creaiion of the
Forest and it continired to serve as ;i ~iiirinhighu:ry rhrougho~tt Medireval times).
inhabitants themselves assessing and collecting the Cyfrif payments at their accustomed rates. During this period the Little Forest was still being separately leased
and in the reign of Elizabeth I it was returning a rent of £7. It escheated to the
s t was afterwards granted to Thomas,
Crown at the same time as the ~ r e a i ~ o r e but
Lord Seymour, to fall again into Crown h lnds on his attainder in 1548.
On the restoration of the Monarchy in 1660 after the Civil War, such was the
state of the Royal Exchequer that the Crown in 1662 leased the lordship of Brecon.
to Sir Charles Morgan, to bring Brecon more fully within the T'redegar sphere of
interest. In 1693, Thomas Morgan resumed his lease of the Forest, held separately
from that of the lordship, the lease being continued in 1724 for a further period of
31 years by William Morgan of Dderw who transferred it to William Morgan, his
son-in-law, the son of Thomas Morgan of Tredegar, at a rent of £26 13s. 4d. This
lease excluded the minerals as well as the hunting, the lessee being required to
submit to the Crown every three years particulars relating to the condition of the
property. The lease was renewed by successive members of the Tredegar family
which, by this time, had come to be fully identified with the Forest and the
lordship.
The position of the Commoners of the Great Forest in the event of the dues
being "farmedL' to a Collector was, as we bave seen, highly vulnerable. Various were
the loopholes by which the Collector could turn his office to advantage, despite the
fact that the rates for commoning in the Forest remained at the figures originally
fixed by the grant of Richard 111. But what was to be the rate of Cyfrif at which young
stock, or different kinds of stock, could be assessed and who, by this time, could be
identified as a genuine Commoner in the original meaning of the term ? Down the
years there had been much dispute on this and on other matters, but by the end of
the eighteenth century it was still customary to pay annually Id. for a cow, an ox or
a horse, but for a bull, a steer, heifer or colt, the amount was id. and sheep were at
the rate of 4d. a hundred, and it was argued by some that a mare before being broken
in to work, should pay only $d. While, as in the past, it was still the right of all
tenants or residents within the lordship to send stock to the Forest, it was to the
advantage of the Collector to confine rights of common strictly to those persons
living within the Forest and to increase the charges for those dwelling outside the
actual boundary and in adjoining parishes, in this way to defeat the system of low
fixed rates. Acting on this interpretation, the Collectors sought to impose upon the
Commoners of the parishes of Cantref, Ystradfellte and Ystradgynlais, a charge of
double the Cyfrif rate, the larger animals at 2d. each and 100 sheep at 8d. Furthermore the Commoners of Llanspyddid and those from the more remote parishes of
Llanddety, Llangasty and those to the north of the River Usk, viz., Merthyr Cynog,
Llandeilo'r Fan, Llanfihangel Nant Bran, Llanfihangel Fechan and Garthbrengy,
having Commons of their own, incurred the still higher charge of 4d. for the large
bessts and 16d. for 100 sheep. Inasmuch as the tenants of the Little Forest were not
specifically mentioned in the grant of 1483 as having right of grazing in the Great
[Page Thirteen]
Forest, taey were excluded from turning their stock into the Forest except at the
higher rates imposed on "foreignyLstock.
Again it was always profitable for a Collector of Cyfrif to take in "foreign" stock
on "tack" from outside the lordship, since such stock was not covered by the ancient
prescribed tariff and could be charged at high rates. Such a policy, however, if carried
beyond the grazing potential of the Commons, would materially affect the interests
of the legitimate Commoners and possibly lead to the "stinting" (i.e., the restricting
of the use) of the Commons. This possibility had been present earlier but with the
rapid growth of stock-farming, both of cattle and sheep, to meet the needs of the new
industrial population in the eighteenth century, the position was greatly aggravated.
So far was the practice being carried that in 1780, during the lease held by John
Morgan, the issue led to open dispute, the Commoners protesting against the
"driving" of the Commons by the Collector and especially against the admission of
"foreign" stock before the needs of the Commoners could be fully met. This led to
an enquiry in the following year as to the legality of the introduction of stock from
outside the lordship, the Commoners combining to press their case against the Crown
as the lord of the Forest, threatening, indeed, to impound all "foreign" cattle. Much
was made of the prior claim to the pasture for their own stock, i.e., the more permanent wintered stock, or in the legal phrasing. the animals couchant et levant (lying
down and rising) on their holdings, as distinct from imported stock brought in to
take advantage of the Common. Such was the feeling aroused that in 1786, the
Crown, as lord paramount, filed a suit against two of the Commoners on the issue of
the right of the Collector to bring in "foreign!' stock. The charge, buttressed by the
full arm of the law, was expressed in somewhat extravagant terms, that "the
defendants, not fearing the laws of England, but intending by disinherison of the
King, with force and arms . . . continued in contempt of the king and his laws, etc."
It was argued on behalf of the Crown that the "farmer" of the Commons stood in
the same position as the Crown itself and that, in any case, the terms of the lease
did not prohibit the practice. With the case already weighted against the Commoners, the verdict went in favour of the Crown.
i t was in this atmosphere of complete mistrust of the Crown and its advisers
that the Commoners, far from accepting the verdict, remained adamant in their
opposition, apprehensive of future developments. It was regarded as somewhat
intolerable that the Crown should invoke constitutional privileges derived from its
sovereign position in the realm to apply to matters in dispute as between landlord
and tenant on its private estates and in this case concerning territory not included in
the ancient demesne of the Crown. The spirited protest at this time may well have
prompted the Crown advisers later to consider the advisability of disposing of the
Forest in its entirety. More immediate, however, was the financial stringency occasioned
by the heavy drain on the national purse following on nearly 20 years of war with
Revolutionary France and Napoleon. When, in 1812, the Commissioners of Woods
and Forests, dissatisfied with the meagre returns obtainable from the diminutive
rents, regarded by this time as totally incommensurate with the inconvenience and
LPage Fourteen]
cost of collectioff, especially in the hostile atmosphere prevailing, advised the Crown
to dispose of the Forest to help meet the costs of the War. I t was further urged
that the uncultivated state of the Farest, yielding but little profit, was of less benefit to the persons interested than if it were divided. I t was proposed, therefore,
to submit the Forest for sale by auction in seven lots.
A new situation was now created and with it commenced a new phase in the
history of the Forest, fraught with the greatest danger to all Commoners in that i t .
might involve disafforestation and the extinguishment of their rights of commonage. A strong move was made to meet the threatened danger. The Commoners,
greatly alarmed, re-formed their Committee at a general meeting held at Devynock
in 1813 to watch events and to organise a fund to enable them to employ Counsel
or to meet other contingent costs in any legal proceedings. The Commoners included among them both landowners and farmers from the area, seventy-seven
signifying their support. Prominent among the members were Penry Williams,
Penpont (in the Chair), the Marquess of Camden, Sir Charles Morgan (lord of the
manor of Brecon) and others. I t was a gallant struggle against heavy odds in which
all the resources of the law could be employed against them, the burden of proof,
in a background of changing times, falling on them as Commoners. They were, too,
from the first, in a weak position in law in that they had no corporate status other
than as individual Commoners in special relation with their lord. Their right to
common was by its nature tenuous and ill-defined, seeing that it carried payment,
however nominal, though this in no way deprived them of their fundamental right
to send their more permanent stock to the Forest. The Crown lawyers could assert
with considerable force that the Commoners by the very fact of payment had no
legal right of common and that search of the records of the past had revealed that
there had been no formal award by charter of the Crown other than that made
by the indenture of Richard 111 in 1483, granted only under Privy Seal, though
it had to be conceded that this was later confirmed by Henry V111 in 1538.
Counsel for the Commoners, indeed, was not confident of the success of a claim in
the courts based on Crown grant and he urged the more general plea of long user
upon which full testimony could be produced.
The case for the Crown versus the Commoners was referred for trial in the
King's Bench, naming as defendants two of the tenants, Watkin Lloyd of Nantgwared (Llywel) and David Jones of Qmawr (Devynock), the Crown, on its part,
asserting in general terms the right to dispose of the Forest without let or hindrance,
the defendants on the contrary claiming that the sale of the Forest could not be
effected without regard being had for the holders of the common rights. Such was
the strength of the claim of long usage by the Commoners that the Crown lawyers,
during the Spring Assizes at Hereford, agreed to a withdrawal of the case. The sale
of the Forest, was, therefore, abandoned and a new proposal put forward, viz., to proceed by way of a private Act of Enclosure, in this way separating the interests of the
Crown from those of the Commoners on the lines of that adopted in the case of
Exmoor Forest, a compromise which the Commoners found themselves unable to
[Page Fifteen]
[Page Sixteen]
[Page Seventeen]
refuse.' The new proposal in fact marked a considerable victory for the Commoners
inasmuch as, under the Act, one-half of the Forest would fall to them while the
issue would no longer be a,grivate matter between Crown and tenants but would be
subject to the safeguards' of Parliament. The situation confronting the Forest
tenants, however, in these new, negotiations called for constant vigilance and a
measure of statesmanship if the settlement was to be achieved on a basis of equity.
,
Enclosure :
The Enclosure Act was accepted by Parliament on 11th July, 1815. I t provided
for the division of the Forest on a more or less equal basis between the Crown as
landlord and the freehold Commoners, also for the removal of the remnants of
Forest orgahisation and the extinction of all forestal dues. In effect, therefore,
the area was disafforested and the Forest Courts ceased to function.
evert heless, the Act, while legislating in favour of the freeholders within the, Forest,
tended to overlook the claims of those more remote who had no immediate use for,
or had ceased to exercise their rights, while the landless within the Forest suffered
the usual disabilities associated with all Acts of Enclosure. The Crown, while agreeing with the division of the Forest, retained its hold over the minerals of the entire
area. Two Commissioners were appointed to carry out the partition and to allot
the respective shares of the Commoners in severalty, subject to appeal, the expense of enclosure to be provided by the sale in freehold of outlying parts of the
Forest. These preliminary sales, amounting in all to 27 separate properties, were
mainly confined to the northern and the southern fringes of the Forest, the land at
Llosged (with Fan Frynich) and Glasfynydd (near Trecastle) being purchased by
Rowland Alder, and the land of Cwm Llech, on the south side, by John Christie of
London, both being strangers to the district. The actual process of division and
allotment was to take a far longer time than was anticipated, extending, indeed,
into years and the costs incurred were to mount to approximately £16,000, involving the sale of 8,081 acres of the Forest, some in small plots, to various purchasers
in order to raise the necessary funds or to compensate for loss of tithes, the land
withdrawn in this way reducing very considerably the amount available for
allocation to the Commoners.
The area of the Forest before enclosure was calculated at 39,390 acres, a much
smaller acreage than that which had existed in the Middle Ages, but in the passage
of the centuries, portions had from time to time been disafforested, some appropriated to adjacent holdings by assart or secretly enclosed, complaints of concealment of such enclosures being a fertile cause of dispute in the courts. Under the
Enclosure Award, as given in the figures supplied by the Commissioners, the allotment made to the Crown as Lord of the Forest amounted to 13,767 acres, confined
to a single sector occupying the central portion of the Forest, lying broadly between
the Rivers Tawe and Nedd and containing the heights of Fan Gyhirech and Fan
Nedd. Of the claims to common presented by the Commoners, 542 were allowed, in
proportion to the scale of the holdings, and to these Commoners was assigned the
[Page Eighteen l
remaining porticp. of the Forest, an area of 17,106 acres, lying in two broad
tracts separated by the Crown allotment, viz., that on the west side containing the
mountain ridges of the Fan Hir and the Moel Feity and, on the east side, the Fan
Llia and the Fan Fawr as far as t h c ~ i v e rTaff ('1. (See Map 11).
It had been the intention at the time of the passing of the Act to partition and
to assign to the Commoners their individual shares but, by the year 1816, in face of
mounting costs, it became abundantly clear that to carry out the provisions of the
Act in full detail and to mark out the individual allotments would defeat the very
purpose of the enclosure in time-consuming operations and in costs exceeding the
value of the land itself, calling for still further sales, with consequent reduction in
the amount of land to be allocated. The large number of the claimants and the
mere cost of dividing up and fencing [with stone walls] would have eaten up much
of the value of the land and reduced it to small fragments. The whole procedure,
however, enshrined as it was in an Act of Parliament with power vested in the
two Comissioners subject to no controlling authority, produced for the Commoners
a situation of the utmost frustration. In face of these circumstances, they were
driven to appeal for a stay of execution, pointing out that they had not foreseen
the cost of the proceedings and requesting that the land assigned to them should
remain open and undivided. The Crown, deeming that it would not be expedient to
suspend entirely the execution of the Act, in so far as it affected the interests of the
Crown, agreed with the request, but it left to the Commoners the option to divide
their shares in severalty or to hold their entire section in common. To allow of this,
an amending Bill was presented to Parliament, adding still further to costs. The
Bill, proposed by the Office of Woods and Forests, was accepted by the House on
18th June, 1818, enabling the two Commissioners to complete their award within
twelve months, which award was finally submitted on 19th July, 1819, to the great
relief of the Commoners. The extraordinary effect of this legislation was to create
something which at first sight might be indistinguishable from Common land, free
to those Commoners who succeeded in establishing their right, but which, in fact,
represented their allotments in severalty, so that officially they were regarded as
Allotment holders.
The completion of the Award heralded a final break with the past, a stage
emphasised by the immediate sale in 1820 of the Crown Allotment to James Stewart,
a merchant of Mark Lane in the City of London, for the sum of £15,000. By
December of that year, for the sum of £1,330, the Crown had also disposed of the
mineral rights over the entire Forest as well as the manorial rights over the Crown
sector, though the terms of the conveyance of these rights would seem to suggest
that the Crown had also retained, at the time of the enclosure, the manorial rights
over the sector allotted to the Commoners. In the latter purchase, Stewart obtained
( 1 ) The freehold status of the farin of Cwm Padest (240 acres) was established in the Assize Court at Radnor
in 1818 when the land of Waun Lleucu, lying between the brooks Dwynydd and Padest, was adjudged to
be part of the holding. In its place a n equivalent area of 240 acres was conceded to the Crown from the
Cribarth Mountain. This was later sold separately a n d has since been included in the Craig-y-nos estate.
[Page Nineteen]
.
financial assistance from John Christie who, we recall, had already purchased from
the Commissioners a portion of land on tne south side of the Forest, adjoining the
Crown Allotment. Within a brief time, Stewart became bankrupt, with the result
that the Crown Allotment, with the mineral and manorial rights, fell to Christie,
the Crown at this time finally passing out of the picture.
Notwithstanding the -somewhat reluctant acceptance by the Commoners of the
proposal for enclosure, the methods adopted for the implementing of this, met with
bitter criticism, while the high costs incurred by the Commissioners, amounting to
a total of £16,214, brought further disillusionment, the Commissioners themselves
receiving between them for their services, a sum of £4,000, the Surveyors about
£5,000 and the Solicitors another £5,000 or thereabouts. The unhappy sequence of
events had utterly shaken the faith of the,Commoners, especially the readiness, of
the Crown at an earlier stage to sell the Forest regardless of the rights of its
tenants, apparently indifferent, too, to the drastic reduction from 40,000 to some
17,000 acres of Common land which was ultimately to remain to them. Little wonder
that the Commoners, and through them the community, regarded themselves as the
victims of a dubious transaction carried through with but scant consideration for
their well-being. ; There was also the incompetence shown by the Offick of Woods
and Forests in the drafting of the terms of the sale of the Crown rights to Mr.
Stewart, which left to the Commoners a "heritage of litigation and contention." It
is not surprising, therefore, that the transaction drew down upon it later, in 1896,
the censure of the Royal Commission on Land in Wales as a classic example of
official ineptitude, if not something worse. And one gleans from the purely defensive summary of the proceedings, put forward by the Office of Woods and Forests,
that it gave little counsel to the body of its own tenants, unorganised and unaccustomed tp ,the complexities of the legai aspects of the matter at issue. Later in the
century, too, the Office was equally unhelpful when, in 1893, it was invited to give
an interpretation of the wording of its own document of 70 years earlier, it offered
no comment but cynically advised the Commoners to seek the interpretation of the
Courts. I t would be taking the more charitable view to say that the events associated with the enclosure of the Great Forest of Brecon in the years 1815 to 1819,
coincided with a period of financial stringency arising from the accumulated debt of
long years of war, but we learn that, in fact, the profits of the Crown sale were
largely diverted to the building of Regent Street. Yet for a meagre sum of £16,000,
the hopes of a whole community were blighted for a generation, while a similar
sum of £16,000 was squandered on. the ;agents of the transaction, who alone received
any real gain. An opportunity had-:$resented itself for a more enlightened attitude
on t h e part of the Administration,-possibly by the transfer of the entire Forest by
free grant to the tenants. ,In the event; the share of the Commoners was allocated
somewhat arbitrarily in two large ' divisions of mountain land entirely detached,
situated at .some distance from each. other and divided by the single tract of the
Crown Allotment. It had; too, been the intention that the convenience of the Commoneis shbuld' be borne in mind in assigning hill rights'apbropriate to their respec:pagevTwenty]
with the Roman Road, and, in the background the Fan Nedd.
'The stone lay prostrate in 1940 when i t 3vas raised to its present position.
(see
Arci;zoiogi;i Caxnbrer~sisXC\'.ii.210).
M A I MADOC
~
- A closet. view in
relation to the Raad,
isl~owiiig the illscription on the side of the
Sforte in conlmernoratio~l of Dervacus, the
Son of Justus)
Tile Stone rnay rrrark, a burial, sucii as 1s
riot i~lfrequerltiy found alongside a roadu a q , but no reinalxls x e i e uncovered at
tire foot of t h i s storre on the site The
identitk of Deivaeus is obscure and %he
names d u not figure r r i the geneaio@es of
Lhr royal Pan~ilv of Rrychein~og
tive holdings, whereas, by the division of the Allotment into two widely separated
sections, certain holdings, verging on or contained within the Crown sector, might
now be far distant from their commons (1). The nett effect of the Enclosure, indeed,
was to reduce the area available for h t u r e commonage to less than one-half of the
original extent, eight thousand acres having been sold to defray the expenses of the
operation. The final acreage, as given by the Commissioners, indicates that of the
39,390 acres formerly contained within the Forest, more than one-half, viz., 21,484
acres were, by the Act of Enclosure, withdrawn from the Common to pass into
private hands.
A complicating factor was that of the Church tithes, both the Great and the
Small Tithe. Was the Forest titheable or was it extra-parochial in whole or in part
and, therefore, free of tithe, as the Crown averred? If titheable, to what parish or
parishes was it attached and what were the boundaries of the respective parishes
within the Forest? By what right could the Crown lay claim to tithes when it
rendered no ecclesiastical service? At no time in the past had it levied tithes in the
Forest, yet it was now laid down as a general principle that the tithes from Forest
land not included within a parish belonged to the Crown. In the sales of Forest
land to meet expenses, the Crown had sold the land free of any obligation as to tithe,
but when the matter was raised by landowners and by the Church as tithe-owners,
the Commissioners were driven to sell additional land to compensate these
claimants for their loss. How this could have occurred, except as a result of incompetence, is difficult to understand but the process of enclosure was in consequence for a time thrown into complete confusion. Later in the century, the
Church, prompted by the impending movement for the commutation of the tithes,
expressed the view that the Forest was already, in its several parts, included ecclesiastically in one or other of the adjoining parishes and was, therefore, due for Church
tithe, and when the Act for commuting the tithes was accepted on 27th July, 1840.
confirmed on 18th March, 1843, the tithes for the adjacent parishes in respect of
their shares in the Great Forest were assessed as follows, viz., for Devynoclr
£16 14s.; for Llywel £4 6s.; and for Ystradfellte £8 10s.
(1) The use of the term rhesfa ( = W, strip or section) in the sense of a sheep-walk attached to a holding,
in which, by custom, the sheep of the holding had priority of grazing, points to a widespread practice
among hill farmere to respect each other's sheep-runs within the wider commons, despite the fact that no
exclusive right existed for the particular farmer over this section. The term can hardly be the same as
arosfa ( = W, a stopping place, a place to stay) as is sometimes suggested.
[Page Twenty-one]
Aft er Enclosure :
Enclosure, indeed, was to prove but a second best and while it brought to a
close one set of difficulties, it,:.also opened another. Underlying the difficulties of
the Commoners and at the roof of many of the troubles was their anomalous position,
in that they owed no allegiance to a lord of the manor. They had never been a
corporate body recognisable in law and now, under enclosure, they were solely individual owners. They had no corporate existence on the court roll of a manor nor
had they been recognised as members of the Forest Court now defunct. Their disability
in this respect arose directly from the original creation of the area as Forest combined
with the fact of their payment of Cyfrif for the rights of common. And for the
future, by what method was the Commoners' Allotment to be administered, seeing
that it was still to be shared in common and in joint use? Who, under the new
arrangements, was to exercise control and how was that control to be exercised to
ensure protection from neglect and from abuse? By what means were the Commons,
now greatly reduced, to be safeguarded against overstocking, or be given protection
from misuse by such unfair practices as the driving of the sheep of the weaker
members from the better pastures, a feature of hill-farming by no means uncommon?
A proposal by the Commissioners to draw up regulations was opposed, on the
ground that it interfered with the rights of the Commoners. There remained only
the Committee which had worked steadfastly through difficult times and which
alone could command the co-operation of the Commoners but, while agreeing to the
exercise of general supervision, a meeting held at Trecastle on 27th November, 1821,
decided against any individual allocation of the commons or the framing of any
regulations for control. As a Committee, therefore, its functions seem to have
been confined in practice to the safeguarding of the group against interference from
outside rather than to the assumption of any authority over the members. Only the
innate good sense of the allotment-holders themselves, based on the deeply-ingrained
traditions and practices of the past in the use of the common of pasture in the
Forest, was to save the situation from breakdown and render it viable as a basis for
co-operation.
Manorial Riylzts :
The Enclosure Award was not to prove the final settlement, as had been hoped,
for the Commoners were now to be faced with the manorial claims put forward by
the lord of the manor of Brecon, a complication which was to remain with them for
a century. The difficulty arose in part from the failure to carry out in full the
original plan of Enclosure in respect of individual allotments to the Commoners, proceedings which had to be arrested under the amending Act of 1818 on grounds of
expense, thus to retain the Commoners' Allotments unenclosed for use by them in
common. This Act effected no change in the basic position within the Award under
which enclosure of the Commoners' 17,000 acres was to be carried out. I t had been
laid down in the original Act that its purpose was "to allot all that part of the
[Page Twenty-two]
unenclosed land @ft h e Forest to remain open for the benefit of the several persons
named in the Schedule [of recognised Commoners], freed and discharged from all
claims of His Majesty, his heirs and successors and all persons lawfully claiming
under him or them, saving such rights and interests as are expressly reserved to His
Majesty in and by the Act of 58, George 111, etc." Later in the Act, however, there
was incorporated in the draft, the following clause of vague and general import,
much beloved of lawyers, which might be held to mean much or little, to cover all
eventualities, viz., "Saving to the King and to all bodies politic, corporate . . and to
all and every person all such estates, rights, title, into or out of the said Forest
and open common land by Act directed to be divided and enclosed before the passing of the Act, or could have had and enjoyed therein in case this Act had not been
passed.'l I t was this, cotupled with the actual phrasing of the terms of the conveyance to Mr. Stewart in 1822 of the mineral rights over the whole Forest that gave
the opportunity to Stewart to lay claim, not only to the mineral rights over the
entire area, but also "to all other manorial and other rights, royalties, privileges and
interests of His Majesty over the respective allotments in and over the whole of
the former Great Forest." (1) Stewart, by the wording of these clauses, as framed
by the Office of Woods and Forests, would appear to have been justified in laying
claim to manorial rights even over the Commoners' Allotment. But, it may be asked,
how could the Office of Woods and Forests have retained the manorial rights
over these lands which, under enclosure, were intended to be granted outright
and allotted in severalty to the Commoners? That question was never satisfactorily settled and it remained unanswered. John Christie, who soon succeeded
Stewart, concentrated on the mineral rights and gave little attention to any claim
to manorial rights. The vagueness of the position, however, helped to open the way
later for Sir Charles Morgan of Tredegar, as lord of the manor of Brecon, to claim
to exercise the manorial rights over the Commoners' Allotment, the claim being
strengthened when, in 1888, his successor, Lord Tredegar, purchased the mineral
rights earlier held by Stewart. Sir Charles put forward the view that the Enclosure
Award, while granting to the Commoners the full use of their moiety, free of any
claim by the Crown to forestal rights, did not establish the Commoners in the
freehold of their Allotment, the freehold, therefore, remaining vested in him as lord
of the manor. For this reason he asserted the right to all fishing and shooting over
the Commoners' Allotment, despite the protest of the Commoners that under the
Award they were in the position of freeholders, free of all manorial obligations.
.
Shooting Rights :
Notwithstanding the fact that the Commoners' Allotment under the Act of 1818
remained unenclosed, the Award had been made in severalty and it had at
no time been the intention to depart in the Act from the spirit of the alloca(1) It would appear that the Commoners themselves, in their discussion with the Crown Office of Woods and
Forests on the proposed Bill for Enclosure made no specific mention of the manorial rights, but they held
that their residue of the Forest should be "freed and discharged from all forestal and other dues, duties or
payment whatsoever."
[Page Twenty-three]
*
'
tion embridied in the earlier Act of 1815, except in so far as to simplify
procedure and to hasten the completion of the Award. The simple change in
method of procedure, adopted solely in the interest of expediency and a t the desire
of the tenants, was to prove a'.major source oT contention and when, in 1845, John
Lloyd, senior, sought to contest the manorial claims by asserting his right to shoot
over Waun Tinker, Sir Charles Morgan instituted proceedings against him in the
local court. The issue, however, was somewhat obscured by the question of the
ownership of Waun Tinker and other matters in dispute, to produce a som6what
inconclusive result. The Tredegar estate returned to the attack in 1889, noticeably
in the year following on the purchase of the mineral rights. I t issued general
warnings against shooting over any part of the Commoners' Allotment, taking legal
proceedings against sundry minor offenders. Successful prosecutions in a local court
for poaching by outsiders could hardly suffice to establish a claim to manorial rights
and, in 1893, the Commoners, through certain of their members, such as MT. Garsed
Price, pressed their right to take game over any part of their Allotment. Lord
Tredegar, fearing to become involved in serious litigation in the High Court, refrained from taking further action, his claim, in course of time, passing by default,
though he continued to give expression to his contention that he held lordship over
the entire area formerly contained within the Forest.
Conservation of Water :
About this same time there came to the fore the further question of the conservation of water to serve the new industrial towns in South Wales. This was to
become a live issue with the proposal of Cardiff Corporation in 1884 to acquire land
for its first reservoir on the Upper Taff, the Cantref Reservoir. In this project, in
so far as it involved land within the Commoners' Allotment, Lord Tredegar, as lord
of the manor, claimed an interest, a claim which was once more to challenge the
basis of the Commoners' rights under the Enclosure Award, to lead to litigation and
to delay in the opening of the reservoir until 1892. The sale of the land brought the
matter to a crisis and even the Crown lawyers were unwilling to give an opinion
on the interpretation of the law concerning the case. TPhe Commoners, realising
the absence of legal recognition of their status, moved, in 1893, for a private Bill in
Parliament to legalise their position as a body corporate in perpetual succession,
the same to be entitled "The Great Forest of Brecon commoner^,^' with powers to
hold property, to sue and to be sued, to make bye-laws and to have a seal, thus to
assume undisputed right to their estate and to its government. The Bill, however,
met with the strongest opposition in Committee, notably from Lord Tredegar and
the Marquess of Camden, with the result that, after three days of hearing, it was
thrown out, little attention having been given to the special and unfamiliar circumstances surrounding the enclosure of the Great Forest of Brecknock. According
to evidence supplied by John LIoyd, the Commoners, at additional cost to themselves,
took the matter to Court to determine their position under the A w a ~ d ,but after a
[Page Twenty-fot~rl
hearing of only three days, they again failed to establish their case and were called
upon to meet costs amounting to £500. The failure of their appeals left the Commoners with no machinery of organisation to give expression to their status, a
position which has remained unchanged to this day. That there could exist Commoners apart from a manor or a manor apart from a lord seemed, in the eye of the
law, to confute one of the basic canons of land law, this notwithstanding that the
Great Forest Commoners had in fact been created by law.
Minerals :
The lord of the manor could have but small claim to the minerals, either in the
Commoners' Allotment or in the Crown moiety, these having been retained by the
Crown at the time of the Award and, subsequently sold in 1820 to John Stewart, on
whose financial failure they passed to John Christie. The region gave little indication of being mineral-bearing, but included in the sale to Stewart were the quarries
of limestone. Before the Enclosure Award it had been the custom from time immemorial for the Commoners without restriction, to dig for limestone on any of
the outcrops and to burn lime for use on their holdings and even for sale. ~ n d e i
the Award they were assigned about eight sites at which they might still exercise
the privilege, including the quarries at Penwyllt, Carnau Gwynion and Cefn Garreg,
but, in the absence of equipment, they could hardly develop these except on some
co-operative basis. The purpose of Christie's interest in the area became clear when,
in 1823, he set himself to develop the Penwyllt quarries on his land with a view to
exploiting the market for lime in the new agriculture which was already making
headway. Transport overland in this hill country was laborious and costly and,
from about 1822, after establishing kilns for burning the lime and stabling for the
horses, Christie embarked upon the construction of a tramway, known as the Brecon
Forest Tram-Road, to run from Penwyllt over Bwlch Bryn Rhudd through part of
his Crown Allotment to Cnewr where a small one-acre plot, Cae Crwn (later
occupied by Cray Railway Station), served as a halt or sub-station for the tramway, the tram road near this point following the line of the road, thence along the
foot of the Little Forest to Sennybridge. Here a wharf with yard was set up at
Glanwysg, near Castell Ddu, as a depot for the sale of lime, burnt both here and
at Penwyllt. To obtain the coal for the burning of the lime, Christie extended
the tramway from Penwyllt down the Tawe Valley to the Drum Colliery near
Onllwyn, the coal being conveyed with the lime from Penwyllt in light four-wheeled
trucks on rails to Sennybridge for trading in the country districts. It was but a step
further to extend the tramway along the northern slope of Cefn y Drum to the
Gwaun Clawdd basin to join the head of the Swansea Canal, across the River Tawe
near Hen Neuadd, to establish a link between the agriculture of the Upper Usk and
the industry of the Tawe Basin. These were days before the railway, nor was a
canal along the route practicable. The project for a tramway was not entirely nem
for it had been mooted in 1793 at the time of the construction of the Swansea Cana:
[Page Twenty-five11
when aYSweyor was directed to investigate the possibility of such an undertaking
to be carried as far as Devynock. A further survey for a tramway as far as Trecastle was made in 1805, during the Napoleonic War (l). Nothing came of these
plans until Christie set himself the task of building the Forest Tram-road to Sennybridge. Contemporary maps, such as that by Greenwood in 1827 and by the
Ordnance Survey in 1830-33, trace the course of the route followed by him, the
former also indicating the approach to the Canal near Gwaun Clawdd by inclined
plane. Later, about 1832, a branch line was constructed along the south iide of
Mynydd y Drum to join the Canal at a point near Ystradgynlais, probably to carry
coal and limestone to the Ynyscedwyn and other local ironworks.
More ambitious
schemes to connect the Sennybridge project with Brecon and possibly with the
eastern parts of the county and Hereford were to remain no more than a dream,
especially as the Lower Usk was already catered for by the Brecon and Monmouthshire Canal. Trade in the area, however, was unequal to such development and
Hadfield, from the record of tolls paid to the Swansea Canal by the tramway during the years 1835-40, shows the limited amount of traffic operating on this link
line.
The Tramway constructed by Christie from the Penwyllt Quarries and the Drum
Colliery to Sennybridge extended for a distance of some 16 miles, about 12 miles in
the centre part of its course on Christie's own land and the sections on the two extremities, north and south, on land obtained by lease. Christie himself supervised
the work, building his residence a t Cnewr, Cray. To carry through his plans he
obtained, on 1st June, 1825, a loan of £30,000 at 4% from Joseph Claypon, a member
of a banking family of Boston (Lincs.), giving as security his lease of the minerals,
tithes and royalties of the entire Forest far 999 years. The idea of constructing a
tramway to link agriculture with industry showed a measure of enterprise but, in
the difficult post-war years of the 1820'~~
it was probably in advance of its time,
neither the agriculture of the one region nor the industry of the other being sufficently developed to warrant the heavy capital expenditure involved. By 1827,
finances were becoming strained, Christie bringing in his son and his brother, Robert,
his partner in business, (3) to offer further and collateral security to Joseph Claypon,
with whom were now associated his brothers, R. and B. Claypon. Already Christie
had offered the estate for sale by auction at Brecon but without success, yet he now
went forward to purchase, before September, 1826, the farm of 40 acres at Blaenllian, near the Maen Llia, as well as further small parcels of land to the extent of
198 acres in all. The deeds of these were deposited with Claypon as additional
security. The tramway undertaking ultimately involved borrowing up to £98,000
(1) C. Hatfield. The Canals of South Wales and the Border. Cardiff 1360.
on. cit. refers to this extension. Dr. W. G . Thomas. of the Department of Industry of the
National Museum, informs me that the course of this route is clearly traceable on the ground.
(3) John Christie. junior, at this time lived at Bury Court, St. Mary Axe, London, and Robert was in business
at Manchester.
(2) C. Hatfield
[Page Twenty-six]
of which a sum bf £52,000 was covered by the earlier deeds and £20,000 guaranteed
by promissory notes. How the Claypon brothers were induced to shoulder this burden
is not apparent, unless they saw prospects in the Forest lease, but the tramway
and all other assets were soon thrown in to save the situation. Before the end of
the year 1827, however, Commissioners in B:ulkruptcy took over the Christie estate
to assign it in trust for all the creditors, of which the chief were the Claypons, to
whom was owing by mortgage a sum of £32,745, also the £20,000 in bonds which,
with interest unpaid, now stood at £21,109 11s. 9d. On 18th July, 1828, the estate
(including the Forest Allotment of 13,620 acres but exclusive of Waun Lliky (Llequcu)),
the mineral rights, royalties and tithes of the whole Forest, the farm of Waundwr
(167 acres), allotments of 82 acres, additional land of some 198 acres in the Llia Valley
together with the tram-road, the buildings, works and equipment, including the
tram-plates, were offered for sale by auction in seven lots. Apart from Lot 7, however, with its offer of Blaenllian (Blaenllia) with 140 acres of land, sold for £700, no
bid reached the reserve figure, so that the remainder of the estate, less expenses,
was assigned by the Court to the Claypon partners. One of their first steps seems
to have been to lease the tramway for a term of years to two timber merchants of
London, Thomas Arnott and Robert Mercer, who soon disposed of the lease, together with that of the Drum Colliery, to the Marquess of Camden and other local
landowners - William Powell, William Watkins and David Jeffreys - at a rent of
£650 a year and the Colliery at £50 with royalty of 8d. a ton. ('1 Later, in 1834,
the tramway seems to have been resumed by Claypon to be re-granted to the
partners for a further term of eight years, but returns proved disappointing.
In the latter part of his life, Joseph Claypon (then living at 9, Westbourne
Street, Hyde Park Gardens) created a trust under his will for the administration of
the estate after his death. He died on 26th May, 1859, still possessed of the mineral
royalties and manorial rights of the Forest, the sector of 147 acres and the farm of
Cwmdwr, which on 4th December, 1861, were sold to A. M. Storey Maskelyne
who disposed of the mineral and manorial rights in 1862 to Edwin Newman
Two years later, Hugh Murdoch of Belfont acquired from Newman the Glasfynydd
sector, purchased in 1820 by Robert Alder. The tramway, still in the hands of the
Trustees, was sold to George Edwards and in 1863, the section which lay within the
former Forest was taken over for the laying of the track of the new Neath and
Brecon Railway then in process of construction. The track followed in the main
that of the tram-road and the sections along the two extremities, purchased by
James Dickson, the contractor for the Railway, were probably also incorporated in
the track. Dickson, however, went into liquidation in 1875 and these sections were
re-sold.
(1) The lease, to commence on 21st September, 1828, included in its terms "the Brecon Forest Tramroad from
Drum Colliery to Castell Ddu Wharf, the limekilns, cottages and stables a t Penwyllt, 70 acres of land a t
Penwyllt, the cottages and stables a t the Grawen, the lime-sheds a t Cnewr and Castell Ddu, about 1 acre
a t Cnewr, also liberty to go along the side of the tramway to repair the same and to make buildings for
the trade."
[Page Twenty-seven]
+
A side development of some interest in this connection is that in which James
Dickson, in 1878, a few years after his financial failure, was called upon to defend
himself in the Chancery division of the High Court in a legal action brought against
him by certain of the ~ommo$ers when, somewhat belatedly, they complained that
Dickson had, without thclr consent, developed limestone quarries and lime kilns on
Twyn Disgwylfa, Penwyllt, assigned to them at the time of the Enclosure, and had
built a tramway from the site, though he was not himself a Commoner nor had he
received concessions on their behalf. Though Dickson, as lessee, was not without
claim, judgment was given in favour of the Commoners, Dickson being forced to
abandon within one month the entire venture, including the works and sidings. He
could, however, still operate on the former Crown moiety, but shortly afterwards he
surrendered his lease. The mineral rights would seem to have passed from the
ownership of Edwin Newman to Henry Gribble, a merchant of Bristol, who like
his predecessors, concentrated his activities on quarrying for limestone and did not
seek to assert the manorial rights. In 1888, however, Gribble sold the minerals for
a sum of £1,200 to Lord Tredegar, the rights thus returning to the lordship to
which they had been attached until their alienation by the Crown in 1818.
By today the Neath and Brecon Railway has itself passed from the scene, carrying with it a hundred years of history. Before its coming, the region, isolated in its
mountains, was slow to develop but the rise during the XIXth century of the industrial towns along its southern border - Merthyr, Hirwaun, Ystradgynlais opened up a market at its very door. I t was the Swansea Canal prospectors who
first contemplated the possibilities of such a connection between industry and agriculture, but it was John Christie who carried it into effect.The opening of the Railway
in 1867, however, more than any other single factor helped to stimulate the Forest
to something more than subsistence farming and to adapt the desolate and barren
upland to the purpose of the market.
The rearing of cattle had been the mainstay of the Welsh throughout the Middle
ages, the native brand of "Welsh Blacks" retaining their hold in the uplands of West
and South Wales well into the XIXth century, only to give place slowly during
the latter half of the century to the more profitable meat-producing breed of Herefordshire "Reds," to establish a footing among the hills of West Breconshire. The
part played by the Devynock Society in fostering the improvement of cattle breeding in the area is appropriately described by the Rev. Jones-Davies in his recent
account of the Society in his booklet. (l)
More spectacular in the rise of the economy during the same period has been
the progress in sheep-rearing. In the Middle Ages sheep occupied but an insignificant place in the Welsh economy, the numbers skall and kept mainly for wool.
(1) Published on the occasion of the centenary celebrations of the Devynock Agricultural Society, 1965.
[Page Twenty-eight]
(t
The Cistercian monks, however, with their wider connections, maintained on their extensive sheep-runs, flocks of two or three thousand sheep. In the late XIVth and in
succeeding centuries the production of .wool was assuming ever greater importance
to meet the demand of the cloth-weaving industry of the Low Countries and of Italy,
Britain serving as the "Australia" of the day to supply the foreign merchants with
wool. Sheep-farming spread rapidly on the English downlands a n d in the rain-shadow
area of Herefordshire and Shropshire along the Welsh Border, and an important woolexporting industry grew up on both sides of the Border, Leominster, with Leomirister
Ore, serving as a wool-marketing centre. In later centuries this was to spread
westward into the hill ctruntry of Breconshire but movement was slow in face of
the low yield of wool obtainable from the inferior breed of sheep, much afflicted
with disease in the wet climatic conditions prevailing. Not until the late XVIIIth
and the XIXth century, with the more productive strains of sheep and the growing
demand for meat as well as for wool in the new industrial districts, did sheepfarming on a greater scale extend into Wales to become the major feature of Welsh
hill-farming, stimulated by the years of scarcity during and after the Napoleonic
Wars. Even before the enclosure of the Forest during the years 1815-1819, the n u ber of sheep pasturing there was on the increase, flocks of 500 to 1,000 being
recorded in single ownership, the Commoners finding their best outlet along these
lines. The reduction of the area of commonage, however, undoubtedly acted as a
check to the numbers which could be maintained on the Commoners' Allotment.
By contrast, the Crown Allotment of some 13,000 acres came by sale into private
hands, available for the development of stock-rearing on larger and more commercial lines. The new feature of large-scale production of mutton and wool was
already apparent by the early "sixties," to make for the improvement of the
marginal and sub-marginal lands. Signs are not lacking of the part which prominent
local sheep farmers among the Commoners were taking, both as to the number and
the quality of their flocks - men such as David Price of Nantyrharn, his sheep-run
extending over the Little Forest and over other land rented by him from four
separate owners, making up a total of some 300 acres, with hill rights attached and
carrying a sheep population of some thousands.
It was from about the "sixties," too, that the local community was to receive an
accession of strength by the settlement in the area of enterprising sheep farmers
from the Scottish Lowlands, mainly from Ayrshire, who were to make their contribution to the economy of the region through the raising of the general standard of
both meat and wool by their introduction of the hardy Cheviot breed to cross with
the Welsh stock, many sheep from Cardiganshire being brought in for this purpose. The assignment of the Crown Allotment to Claypon after the failure of
Christie gave opening, after the mid-century, for the leasing of this vast area of
some 13,000 acres to the Cnewr Company a a single unit to allow of sheep-farming
on extensive lines. The founder of the Company was Robert McTurk, formerly of
Kirkcudbright, who, with his son, was established at Cnewr possibly as early as
9
[Page Twefity-nine]
.
1553, certainly by 1865, learning of the property, so it is said, from a Welsh drover
at Barnet Fair. By the opening years of the new century his great sheep-runs were
carrying flocks of 14,000 sheep, in charge 01 Scottish and Welsh shepherds, introducing an element of ranching into sheep-farming in Breconshire, the annual sheep
sales on the site becoming a feature of the agricultural scene.
Another member of the Scottish community who moved into Breconshire at this
time was James Chalmers ( l ) who took over the tenancy of Llosged before+ 1865.
Llosged originally formed part of the north-eastern fringe of the Forest and was one
of the main portions of Forest land sold outright by the Commissioners to William
Rowland Alder (of Horncliffe House, Co. Durham), this towards defraying the cost
of Enclosure. Llosged remained in Alder's possession until in 1861 it was purchased
by Mr. Anthony Story, who on his marriage assumed the name of his wife's family
of Maskelyne, ultimately settling at Glanwysg. The Llosged property later passed
to J. S. Masterman, grandson of Mr. Story Maskelyne, concerning whose family the
Rev. Jones-Davies has contributed some interesting details in his "Museum News" for
28th March, 1963.
Chalmers' tenancy of Llosged appears to have met with some ill-fortune, Mr.
Story Maskelyne suing him, though unsuccessfully, for the sum of £1,000 on
g r ~ u n dof neglect of farming. It was possibly as a result of this dispute that the
tenancy of Llosged became vacant and was in 1875 taken over by W. S. Miller, a
native of New Cumnock in Ayrshire, who named the site Forest Lodge. In evidence
to the Royal Commission in 1894, Miller stated that the property of Forest Lodge ran
to several thousand acres, carrying many thousands of sheep on Fan Frynich, as well
as on Fan Llia, the Gyrn, Glanyrafon and Blaentaf, and by the decade 1910-1920,
according to information received from Mr. Ferguson, formerly employed as a
shepherd by Mr. Mmiller, the figure had risen to 23,000 sheep.
Mr. Story Maskelyne also acquired, probably in 1861, the other sector of the
Forest purchased by Alder at the time of the Enclosure, viz., Glasfynydd, near
Trecastle, on which stood the holding of Belfont, but this he sold in the following
year (1862) to Edwin Newman. Within two years, however, Glasfynydd was sold to
Hugh Murdoch, for, in 1865, we find him making over the grazing of the same for
nineteen years to Allan Kilpatrick of Smithstone (in the parish of Dalrymple in Co.
Ayre), an agreement which was soon afterwards cancelled. The extensive pasturages
which thus arose as a result of the sale or enclosure of the Forest placed Breconshire by the end of the century in the forefront of the Welsh counties in regard to
sheep rearing, its sheep population in 1896 numbering 456,000.
I n course of time other Scottish Lowland farmers followed their countrymen to
settle on farms in the upper reaches of t h e Usk a t Cwmwysg. Among them were
the families of Campbell of 'E wsllwynddu and Stewart of Blaenddol as well as
Thomas Sharp of Pentrebach, W ile the Howats of Blaenwysg on 3rd May, 1872,
came in response to an advertisement in a Scottish newspaper, their furnishings
a
(1) Chalmers of Llosged exhibited an Ayrshire cow at Devynock Show as early as 1865.
[Page Thirty]
and stock broughbby train from the North to Llandovery and then by waggon to
Blaenwysg. Life in this remote region was not for the faint-hearted and the family
still recalls the last stages of the journey to the new home, Mrs. Howat with the
two youngest children taking the short cut over the River Usk barefoot.(l)
Other Scottish folk who settled in the locality were Andrew Fraser, Blaenbrynich,
Young of Glasfynydd (Belfont) who followed Murdoch, Craig at Gwernlle'rtai and
Croft at Penllwynrhendy.
The coming of the settlers into what could hardly be described at this time as 'a
promised land' and the circumstances which brought them out of Scotland presents
us with a not uninteresting problem of social history if we are to interpret it as a manifestation of land hunger, but here again we can trace a link in the chain of events
which led directly from the disafforestation and enclosure of the Forest. The migration of the Scottish farmers was, to all appearances, no concerted movement but arose
out of the more fluid conditions obtaining after the Enclosure. Once settled, however, they were brought into close contact with each other, their homes recognisabre
on the landscape by the belts of conifers planted by them as shelter.
As we pass in review the history of the Great Forest through its many vicissitudes, we cannot fail to note how much has followed at every stage from the first
declaration of the area as Forest and how close has been the hand of the past on the
course of its development.
(1) James Howat left Blaenwysg five years later to settle near Crickhowell.
ADDENDUM
A Further Note on the Mtneral Rights as affecting the Commoners' Allotment.
The mineral rights of the entire Forest area were retained by the Crown at the time of the Enclosure
In 1819 and these were sold separately to Mr. Stewart, later to be vested in Mr. Christie and in 1828 in Mr.
Claypon. Various documents relating to the transfer of the Crown share of the land and the mineral
rights over the Forest are preserved. Claypon, faced with the problem of developing the Forest, granted
in 1843 a lease to dig fire-clay and fire-sand in Pantmawr and Penwyllt to Richard Davies of Ystradgynlais
and six years later a further lease to the same and to John Williams, master of the Onllwyn Ironworks,
to quarry for limestone on payment of royalty.
Probably after the death of Claypon in 1859, his trustees disposed of the mineral rights in the two
S-ctions of the Commoners' Allotment, estimated at some 18,000 acres, first to Henry Hodson of Wellingborough (Northants) and the Rev. Henry Gabell of London. Within a few years, in 1863, the rights were
sold for a sum of £3,000 to Geo. Edwards of Bristol who, in 1866, brought together a syndicate of businessmen
Wm. Montague Baillie, Frederick Hurford Jones. John Whittington, Henry Gribble of Bristol, with
Frederick Green and Thomas Allin, of Angel Court, London, and others, to form a stock of £3,000 in 18
shares to work the coal and minerals of the area. Within a year the two London merchants had withdrawn, disposing of their 4/18ths and 2/18ths shares in the venture to Edwards and Baillie in sums amounting to £1,000 of the stock. In the following year, too, (1868), Baillie transferred his three shares to his
nephew, John Baillie of Leys Castle, Inverness, for the sum of £500. The Company continued to develop
though coal and. indeed. minerals generally were lacking
and, in 1887, John
the limestone quarries
Baillie sold his share to James and Robert Leman and Thomas Graves.
-
-
-
(Page Thirty-one]
BRECON :
Printed by "The Brecon and Radnor Express and County Times" Ltd.
The Bulwark.
1968.