(fol. 69a) Monday, Decr. 6
We found there was so much to be seen in the neighbourhood of Aberffraw that we determined on prolonging our stay for another day at our present station. About nine attended by the same person who went with us yesterday we walked to the parish church which outwardly resembles other Welsh buildings of the kind but on entering we observed a neat turned Saxon arch to the west end underneath the clochti an evident token that this part of the building was of a more ancient date and most likely erected during the times the Saxons held the Island which was for above a century. Aberffraw afterwards became the residence of the North Welsh princes and we may suppose it was a place of the greatest consequence in the Island though now it scarcely deserves the title of a village.
(fol. 73) Not far from the church they point out a field where the palace of Llewelyn stood but no traces remain the ground having been cleared quite to the foundation. Proceeding in a northwesterly direction for a mile and a half we came to the little church of Llangwyfan. This is erected on a rocky peninsula jutting out into the sea and is an Island at high water so that not unfrequently the congregation are interrupted in their devotion by the rapid approach of the waves. From its exposed situation to the weather and from the spray of the sea beating against its walls the stones in parts are fretted like a honeycomb which gives it a most venerable appearance though from the shape of the windows at the east end I should not suppose it was above four centuries standing. Whilst I was sketching the font and part of the interior Russell copied a curious (fol. 73a) epitaph to the memory of Mr. Woode written about the year sixteen hundred two an age remarkable for its false wit and punning indeed must have been very prevalent to have found its way to so remote a quarter as this. Inscribed on a brass plate let into a stone slab is the following epitaph:
Felix ter felix marmor quia nobile lignum
Quo caret infelix insula marmor habes
Owen et patriae vivens fuit utile lignum
Et lignum vitae post sua fata Deo
Filius ista meo posui monumenta parenti
Sic precor et tecum nomen [et] Owen idem
In obitum Oweni Woode armigeri qui
Obiit 6 die April A° Dni 1602 Ætat 70.