But our architects fifty years ago, when taking a holiday, rushed off to Normandy and filled their sketch-books with drawings made in French churches, and on returning home used them up in “restoring” our English sacred buildings, or in designing churches and town halls on foreign lines.
VALE CRUCIS ABBEY
And what excuse can be found for plate-tracery that consists in drilling holes in slabs in Caen stone for windows, when exquisite tracery and moulding can be wrought out of the same stone? I should have liked to take Mr. Ferry, the perpetrator of the abominations at Corwen, to Vale Crucis Abbey and shame him by the comparison.
The only portions of the earlier church left at Corwen are the lancets at the east end, and a bit of north wall of the chancel.
Over the south porch door into the church is an early incised cross, that is popularly supposed to be the impression of Owen Glyndwr’s dagger, flung from the height above, and which left its mark on the stone. Into the east side of the north porch is built the leaning Carreg-y-Big-yn-y-Fach-Rewlyd (the Pointed Stone in the Frosty Corner). It is about six feet high, and is a prehistoric menhir. The story goes that the church was begun on another site, but every night the stones were removed and brought here and heaped about this block. Accordingly the builders accepted the intimation and erected the church where it now stands.
An old cross with interlaced Celtic work on it, and a short sword in relief, stands in the churchyard. The Maen Llwyd, near Llandeilo, has also a sword carved on it, and such stones probably indicate the burial-place of a warrior. The base is indented with hollows, like the cup-markings found in menhirs, dolmens, and flat rocks, which are still a mystery to antiquaries, but which were perhaps intended as receptacles for oil as oblations to the manes of the dead, for some councils and bishops denounced the superstitious anointings of standing stones by the semi-Christianised peasantry.
Beyond the river rises Caer Drewyn. The stone wall encloses a large area on a steep slope. It does not occupy the summit of the hill, but a spur near a spring from which flows a tiny rill. The walls were of stone unset in mortar, and they have fallen and form a continuous mound of débris. Within are a few ruined cytiau. The camp is of the type of the Irish forts near the coast, but has been supposed to be earlier and to belong to the Bronze Age, and without an exploration with pick and shovel there is no determining its period, for much the same construction belonged to both epochs.
It was occupied at a much later time. Owen Gwynedd in 1164 rose in revolt against Henry II. The English King collected a mixed force, and from Oswestry ascended the Dee. Owen and his brother Cadwaladr of Merioneth fought a battle with him at Crogen, near Chirk. The King’s life was saved by the self-devotion of Hubert de Clare, who, seeing an arrow hurtling through the air towards his master, interposed his body, and received the missile in his breast. The Welsh retreated across the Berwyn Mountains to Corwen, pursued by the English, and Owen established himself and his forces within this venerable ring of stones. They could obtain plenty of mutton from the mountains and moors at their back, and there was water in the spring under the north wall. Henry’s army camped on the opposite hill. The weather broke up, rain poured down, and the ground of the English camp became a quagmire. The English dared not venture far for fear of falling into ambushes among the woods and rocks, and suffered for want of food. Men and horses dwindled through sickness and privation. Military stores ran short, and at length, in the mood of a baffled tiger, Henry was compelled to withdraw without having accomplished the end aimed at in this campaign. Raging at his discomfiture, he had the eyes torn out of the heads of the sons of Owen Gwynedd and Rhys ab Tewdwr, whom he held as hostages.