Members and others intending to be present at the Meeting will considerably facilitate the operations of the Local Committee by giving notice of their intention to the Secretary, George Rees Bevan, Esq., Brecon, before the end of August.

Tickets will be issued by the Local Committee to Non-Subscribers at the following prices, admitting to all the Meetings and the Museum :

Family Ticket to admit all the bona fide members of a

family residing together....

For the family of a Subscribing Member

10s. Od.

7s. 6d.

Subscribing Members may have their Tickets gratuitously, on application to the Secretary of the Local Committee.

At the Meeting Mr. SYMONS will move the following resolutions:I. That the Cambrian Archæological Association, as at present constituted, be dissolved at the close of the Brecon Meeting, and that the Members of it do thereupon form a new Society, to be called "THE CAMBRIAN ASSOCIATION," which, together with the limited objects of the present Institution, shall combine those of "The British Association for the Advancement of Science," &c., and hold similar meetings, under a similar constitution, in Wales and its Marches,— the Annual Subscription to be One Guinea, or Ten Guineas for Life Membership.

II. That a Committee of five Members be formed to carry out the necessary arrangements, to frame the rules, and to convene the first Meeting as early as practicable next year.

Archeologia Cambrensis.

NEW SERIES, No. XVI.-OCTOBER, 1853.

ACCOUNT OF NEWTON NOTTAGE, GLAMORGAN.

CHAPTER III.

NOTTAGE.

THE dread of piratical invasion, which led so long ago as the time of Edward II. to the employment of Hobelers, or light horsemen, as a coast-guard, was doubtless for ages before an inducement to group the farm houses on the coast of Glamorgan in small communities, for mutual aid and defence. Hence Nottage stands on a gentle elevation rising gradually from "the Wain" on the east, to some fifty feet in height. This aspect shelters it in some degree from the violence of the western gales. Traces of a boundary line of some strength may be made out on the verge of the southwestern slope. This disposition of buildings may have led to the numerous small intersecting lanes generally met with in places anciently surrounded by a line of defence; one of the small streets is still called Heol Capel. The site indeed of the old Chapel (recently encroached from the road) is well known. The large flat stone, now forming the stile to Nottage Well, with

1 "Et curvas nebulâ tegente valles,

Solus luce nitet peculiari."-Martial, Lib. iv.

ARCH. CAMB., NEW SERIES, VOL. IV.

2 H

У

its bevilled edges turned next to the wall, is said to have been brought thither from the chapel, and may have formed the top stone of a bench, or served for a table, before its desecration. Digging near a small ruined outhouse close to the Cross Cottage, we found, in 1851, evident remains of Christian burial at a very remote period. The charge of one shilling yearly to each of the three manors is entered on the Pembroke Roll of 1630, for its site, and the chapel, on the north side the road, seems to have been held by the owners of the great house below. The custom of paring the surface-soil and burning stones for lime has erased even the ruins themselves; thus the village cross has become only a name, and thus the large stone which stood at the other end of the lane, opposite Humphrey Leyson's, now Robert Elias', house, has been broken up and pulverized. Two or three similar stones, however, still remain, built into the wall of the Clevis Ton on the north side, and several at Newton have left their names to fields, as White Stone, Stony Lips, and others.

2

2 Several fields have taken their names from being allotted for feudal services, as the Colliers (Golliwns), the Heralds (Harolds), the Barbers, &c. A glossary of the names of fields, though a trivial subject, might not be without interest, as proving how long and intimately English and Welsh have been intermingled. Thus in Newton Nottage the names of the following fields may be explained from two languages; -the Berewalls, from "bere," English, a kind of barley, or, more probably, from byr, short, and walls, as there is a close called "Shortwalls; Brâslod, from bras, thick, rich land, in modern deeds corrupted into "Breastland;" Gibbletree, Caepwllydre; Hollands, (query) Heol lan? Dormer, i. e., Tir mêr, wet land, or Mair, Welsh for Mary; "Erw Vainon," the narrow or slim acre; "Goose-lane," perhaps Cors-lane, or Gorse-lane. There was one at Nottage also, anciently, the Buttons, so called from Butts or boundaries," Butones" in mediæval Latin; Lynslade, from Llwyn, a grove, and Slade, Saxon for a course of water; Cae Llodyr and Prli Llodir, from Llo, a calf, and tir, land; Hookland, from its shape, or else uwch lan, (if Welsh); Bistil Lane, from brystfil, a beast in Welsh, i. e., the road for cattle from the Wickau, or small inclosures east of Newton village, near the ridge thrown up to keep off the inroad of sand; Cole-heys, from Côl, a ridge, and heye, a hedge; Dobble's pit, from Henry Dobble (1491); Stitlon, i. e., Steed land, for horses; Erw Rwgmas, from rouge, red, and "Erw red mere," a similar hybrid word.

Whether this Chapel be obscurely named in the charter of Nicholas, Bishop of Llandaff, to Tewkesbury Abbey, as that of "St. Wendun, in the Vill of Walter Lovell,”—whether the rude representation of a lamb without the flag, on the western gable of a neighbouring cottage (Ty John Norris) should suggest the pastoral cares of St. Wendun, said literally to have been the Guardian Saint of sheep,-and whether Nottage Court may have been the Noche Court of the Cistercian Abbey of Margam, and the Chapel appurtenant thereto, must be left, in the dearth of records, to almost unaided conjec

ture.

The name Erw Coed y Brain (Rookery Field), given to a close where scarcely a tree remains, though a few tall elms survive in the next "croft below the house," may point to an older "Grange," coeval with the ruined Nottage Court Chapel, but the present building, from the details of the porch, the labelled door frames and mullioned windows, and from the resemblance of the ground plan in front to a capital E, is seen at a glance to be of the later Tudor style, prevalent under Queen Elizabeth. The sketch of the house, obligingly presented to the writer, was made with equal readiness and fidelity. Before quitting Nottage, it may be well to record that the stone inscribed to the third Gordian on one side and end, and to Diocletian on the other, was brought from Aberavon, after a voyage into Swansea Bay, as ballast in a pilot boat. It

3

3 The letters of this inscription are rudely cut with a round chisel. A is engraved like an inverted V. About twelve o'clock on a sunny day is the best time for reading it as now placed; it may then be easily deciphered as follows:

IMP C
MAGOR

DIANVS
AVG

Gor

There are traces of two other inscriptions on this stone. dian III., as he is called, was Emperor for six years; his affairs were directed by the wise counsels of Misitheus, whose daughter, Tranquillina, he married. He was treacherously put to death A.D. 244, by Philip the Arabian, who succeeded him, and buried him on

was set up in the lawn before the house for safe preservation; the exact spot was chosen because it once formed the angle of the level platform in Jacklow's Hill, extending to the southward of the present highway, and some bones were found there in embanking.

INCURSION OF DRIFTING SAND AT NEWTON.

The old name, Tre 'r bedwr, ascribed to Newton village, carries us no higher than to the dedication of the church to John the Baptist, alreaded noticed, meaning Tre y Bedyddwr, the Baptist's town; nor does there appear any proof of an ancient village below the Baptist's 's, or Sandford Well. The periods of greater or less disturbance of the sands at Newton must form a subject of local, if not of general interest and inquiry. The inroad began from the west. Some curious information relating to it may be gleaned from the voluminous contents of "the Statutes at Large." Of the forty volumes, fortunately, the contents of less than one-fifth are said to be at present in force. In the statutes of Philip and Mary, c. ii., mention is made of "the hurt, nuisance, and losses, by reason of sand arising out of the sea, and driven to land by storms and winds, whereby much good ground is covered, especially in the county of Glamorgan," and Commissioners of Sewers are authorized to provide remedy, and in consequence a Survey of Kenfig was officially made. Referring to the same century, Borlase says that the flow of the sands commenced in the Scilly Islands; it reached the mouth of the Hayle river, in Cornwall, about A.D. 1520, (twenty years before the time of Leland,) and extended its devastations to Bude Haven, destroying the arable land. At Llanant, according to tradition, the deluge of sand was so violent and sudden as to bury in two nights many houses; on excavations being made, in some instances, even the furniture has

the banks of the Euphrates near Dura. The reconciliation of Ammianus and Zosimus, and the identification of the "the tumulus of Gordian," would be a task worthy of the research of a Layard. (Zos. lib. iii. c. 14. Eutropius, lib. ix. c. ii.)