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From: Alison Bryan <>
Subject: Trefeglwys: Rhyd-y-Carw, Evans, Bennett, Talgarth, Lloyd
Date: Wed, 14 Sep 2005 22:11:38 +0100

The article below is the one Tom mentioned the other day. The reference is:

Vol. XXI
The Montgomeryshire Collections,
"Half Timbered Houses of Montgomeryshire"
T.E. Pryce

It will be of interest to people researching:

Trefeglwys, Rhyd-y-Carw, EVANS, BENNETT, Talgarth, LLOYD.

Alison

================================================================


*Half Timbered Houses of Montgomeryshire*

*By T.E. Pryce*

*(continued from vol. xix, p. 354)*


*VIII – TALGARTH*


When first the pleasant task of illustrating and chronicling our old
timber-houses was undertaken, I scarcely realised its magnitude, nor did I
anticipate that the number still left would prove to be so great that the
finding, noting, and sketching of one house did but open up the prospect of
another elsewhere' and one district visited revealed the fact that, sooner
or later, the adjoining one would have to be explored likewise. I have since
congratulated myself that in this manner I have been led step by step from
one lovely spot to another, and into portions of the country hardly deemed
worth the notice of the average "tripper, and which , from their comparative
inaccessibility, are still luckily free from his presence.

Former visits to Park and Pertheiryn showed that Southern Powys-land was for
my purposes very like an oyster waiting to be opened, and so last year,
having spent a short holiday rambling about the Merionethshire hills, an
incursion into the Plinlimmon district was arranged, the search after more
materials for future notes in the *Montgomeryshire Collections *being its
chief object; and so one fine summer's morning found me tramping up the
steep and picturesque road from Llanidloes past Dollys, and down into the
little valley of Ceryst, rendered famous by the existence therein of the
Great Van mine till where, a half-mile short of Trefeglwys, the Trannon
comes rippling down from the wild open moorland, from which it takes both
its name and source, and turning off the main road to the left, leading up
the valley to Llawr y Glyn, forms the approach to Talgarth, a farm-house
now, but at one time the residence of a family of disctinction, for it is
recorded as the seat of the lords of Arwystli, and the war-loving Howe lab
Ieuaf lived here in the twelfth century. He died in 1185, and was buried at
Strata Florida (Mont. Coll., vol. x, p. 148).

Of the plan of the house little remains to show its former importance;
neither as far as I am aware, does any record of the date of its erection
exist; but the molded sills of the projecting stories of the gables indicate
a period towards the end of the sixteenth century as the time when the
earlier medivial residence gave place to the building, of which the greater
part still exists, and which probably owed its erection to Edward Lloyd of
Leighton, the first High Sheriff of Montgomeryshire.

On the right of the entrance is a room, 19 ft. by 14 ft., now used as a
bedroom, but which probably was the chief room of the house in former days. It
forms the gable end shown in the illustration, and was lighted, in addition
to the side-window, by the curious little bay-window of slight projection,
with molded sills and mullions, which is now stopped up. Other rooms
possibly projected towards the rear, but there is no trace of them now.

On the left of the entrance a kitchen, 15 ft. by 13 ft., a large back
kitchen, milk-house, store room, etc., complete the ground floor, which,
with the bedrooms over and the cellars beneath, is completely modernised,
nothing remaining to distinguish it from any house of yesterday, except the
heavy chamfered beams of floors and wide, gaping chimney-openings.

Outside, the timber-framed walls still remain intact, worked with upright
quarterings with heavy sills, angle posts, and braces; in the gable end each
story projects slightly over the one below, and the overhanging sills are
molded. The gable itself is enriched and lightened by quarterings framed
diagonally. The little bay-window, projecting about four inches, still
possess their original mullions, three inches thick, with quarter-round
mouldings on the angles; and their sills, cut out of solid twelve-inch
timber, have moldings beneath, gradually dying into the horizontal framing
in an unusual manner. The side-windows are of modern construction, as is
also the porch.

Talgarth was possessed and inhabited by the descendants of Roger Lloyd, the
second son of Humphrey Lloyd of Leighton, and the following account of this
family was given me by Mr. Richard Williams.

The first account we have of Talgarth is as the seat of Hywel ab Ieuaf, lord
of Arwystli, about the middle of the twelfth century. Cynddelw, the great
poet, addressed a couple of stanzas to Hywel, which may be found in *Myv.
Acrh* (Gee's ed.), p. 184, acknowledging the gift of a bull, "a sleek and
monstrous beast that tears the ground". Hywel died in 1185, and was buried
at Strata Florida Abbey. Subsequently Talgarth was for many generations the
seat of the Lloys, a family of good lineage, being descendants of Sir
Griffith Vaughan, Knight Banneret of Agincourt, of the Tribe of Brochwel
Ysgythrog, King of Old Powys. (Mont. Coll., ii, p. 208)

The first we read of is Roger Lloyd, who was the second son of Humphrey
Lloyd of Leighton, the first Sheriff of Montgomeryshire, and who served that
office in 1541-2. He married Elizabeth, daughter and heiress of Sir Morgan
Herbert, Knight, the eldest son of Sir Richard Herbert of Montgomery, by his
first wife. (Dwnn's Vis., i, 301-2). By her he had (besides a daughter
Awdry, who was married to Thomas Morris of Maesmawr, Llandinam, Dep,
Sheriff, 1616) Edward Lloyd of Talgarth, whose name we find on the Grand
Jury Lists of 28, 30, 33, 35, 38, and 39 Eliz., and 21 James I (1623). He
married Elizabeth, daughter of John Gwyn ap Morgan of Llanidloes (Sheriff,
1582), by whom he had Roger Lloyd of Talgarth, a staunch Royalist, who was
one of the eight Montgomeryshire gentlemen deemed fit and qualified at the
Restoration in 1660 to be made Knights of the Royal Oak, his estate being
valued at £800 per annum, - a considerable sum in those days. We find "Apud
Park Penpryse 10 March, 21 James I coram Mattheo Pryce Ar., etc., Deposition
of Roger Lloid of Talgarth, in the said County, Gent., aged 27 yeares or
thereabouts, sworne and examined touchinge the felonious stealinge of one
hive of bees from the garden of Deponent, about the third day of this
instant month 1623." ("Misc. Historica," Mont. Coll., vi, 279). His wife was
Lowry, daughter of Edward Lloyd of Ffinnant, by whom he had a son and
successor, David Lloyd of Talgarth, whose wife was Jane, daughter of Evan
Bowen, probably of Penycastell, by whom he had a son, Edward Lloyd of
Talgarth, who married Margaret, the daughter of John Syre, by whom he had a
son, Edward Lloyd of Talgarth, who married Hannah, daughter of David
Maurice.

This brings us down to about the middle of last century, but I am not
acquainted with the subsequent history of the Lloyd family. There are in
Trefeglwys several families bearing the name, some of whom are probably of
the same kindered. Talgarth, which is now occupied as a farmhouse, belongs
to the trustees of General Woosnam.

*IX - RHYD-Y-CARW*

Half a mile further up the valley, and almost on the line of the old Roman
trackway from Caersws, is Rhyd-y-Carw, a quaint old house, which has
undergone considerably less mutilation than its neighbour. Except that its
panelling and other internal comforts of ancient date have disappeared, it
is now much the same as it ever was, and, surrounded by antiquated Scotch
firs, backed by the alders and willows on the brook-side, it still shows to
the world at large a time-defying, smiling face, which has become a positive
grin on the quaint head carved on the end of the ridge-piece over the porch
gable.

Approaching the house, one naturally first notices the door, and here the
original one stills hangs on its stout strap-hinges. It is a "ledged" door,
just six feet high, in two thicknesses of oak, the outside scored across in
lozenge shapes, with a round dot or punch-mark at the intersection of the
lines. While waiting for it to be opened a funny little bit of decorative
"inlay" work is discovered in the cobble pavement of the landing outside, on
which is described in white pebbles a circle containing four reversed
quarter circles, filled in with cobbles running in various directions.

The door opens into the porch about seven feet by six feet, which
communicates with and forms part of the staircase. The stairs are of dark
oak, with a plain balustrade. A step up to the left leads to the parlour, a
room 20 ft. by 10 ft. 8 inches, crossed by two heavy beams, and on the right
of the staircase is the kitchen 20 ft. by 14 ft., with a wide, open
fireplace, and its floor paved with cobbles laid in little squares, after a
fashion delightful to the eye artistic of the visitor, but grievous to the
corns prosaic, and trying to the tempers of those whose acquaintance with it
is on a more permanent footing.

The cellar stairs lead out of the kitchen; a door into the cheese-store
adjoins, and beyond is the servants' kitchen, with its big oven and little
back stairs, and more cobbles to walk upon whilst the dairy, with a modern
tile floor, adjoins. Upstairs the rooms follow the plan below, and are
devoid of ornament.

The walls are framed with stout angle-posts, 12 ins. by 7 ins., the main
divisional posts and sills being 9 ins. by 5 ins., and the quaterings 7 ins.
by 5 ins. The lower storey is 9 ft. 3 ins. clear height, and is framed of
uprights 9 ins apart upon a sill laid on the stone walls of the basement
storey. The upper storey is divided into squares filled with diagonal
quartering, and the house in many respects resembles, and is probably coeval
with, Llandinam Old Hall; the rooms, however are loftier, and the front is
not quite so long. Each gable-end is filled with a huge chimney-stack built
of stone, with walls some 2 ft. 6 ins. thick, and a well-kept white-railed
flower garden stretches out in front. It was the residence during the
seventeenth and eighteenth centuries of the family of Evans of Rhyd-y-Carw,
descended from the eleventh century Lords of Yale. From them is passed by
marriage into the Glansevern family. I am indebted to Nicholas Bennett,
Esq., of Glan yr Avon, for the following account of them.

*EVANS OF RHYD-Y-CARW (STAG-FORD), TREFEGLWYS*


This family derived their descent from Llewelyn Aurdorchog (Leolimus
Torquatus), Lord of Yale, in the eleventh century (Burke's Landed Gentry
"Walcot of Walcot"), who married Eva, daughter of Bleddyn ap Cynfyn, Prince
of Powys. (See Display of Heraldry, by Davies, 1716, p. 64).

Blome, in his Britannia, published in 1673, includes Edward Evans of
Rhyd-y-Carw among the resident gentry of the country. This Edward Evans, by
deed dated 5th April 1652, settled an annuity upon Dorothy his wife, in case
she survived him. Providence, however, ordered it otherwise, for on
28thFebruary 1660 he took as his second wife Frances, daughter of John
Pryce of
Park in Llanwnog, by whom he had issue –


1. Jane, born 1664.
2. Catherine.
3. Francis, born 1665; his mother survived his birth but one week.


Edward Evands had by his first wife Dorothy –

1. Edward Evans (the second), his heir, who married Martha …. , and
had issue Edward Evans (the third) and Ursula Evans. Edward Evans (the
second) died in his father's lifetime, and was buried at Trefeglwys, 30
th November 1687.
2. Morgan Evans, who settled upon an estate in Llangurig, and he and
his wife Judith are parties to a deed bearing date 23rd February, 26
Charles II (1675).
3. Richard Evans.
4. Ursula Evans, who devised certain lands to her neice, Ursula Evans,
in 1670.


Edward Evans (the first) survived his son ten years, and in the year 1697 he
settled the Rhyd-y-Carw estate on his grandson, Edward Evans (the third),
whose daughter and heiress, Sarah, married Charles Davies of Llivor. She was
left a widow three years later, and married, secondly, John Pryce Clunne.

Edward Evans (the third) was a cousin of my grandfather, Richard Evans.

Rhyd-y-Carw was taken into the Glansevern family by Anne, daughter and
heiress of Sarah Evans, by her first husband, Charles Davies of Llivior, on
her marriage with Owen Owen of Glansevern in 1745. The estate was inherited
successively by their eldest son, Sir Arthur Davies Owen, Knight (who died
without issue), and his younger brother, William Owen, K.G. The latter
devised it with his other estates to his widow, Anne Warburton Owen, who
died at a very advanced age, January 5th 1876. It was sold by the late Mrs.
Owen of Glansevern to Mr. Redfern, and subsequently by him to Mr. Elwell,
who again sold it to the Rev. John Issard Davies of Church Farm, a distant
relative of Edward Evans, the present owner.

Arms of Evans of Rhyd-y-Carw. – *Az.**,* a lion rampant guardant or. Crest:
a stag trippant ppr., horned and hoofed *or.* Motto: "Flecti non frangi.
Toraf cyn plygaf" (I will break before I bend).

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• Trefeglwys: Rhyd-y-Carw, Evans, Bennett, Talgarth, Lloyd by Alison Bryan <>