155 



tmties had lasted for four years, a reconcUiation was effected by, amongst other 

 conditions, the betrothal of the King's daughter Joane to Lewis, Jorwerth's son. 

 There is no other record of " the great battle of Wormislowe," and the name of 

 Wonnelow Tump alone remains to record its site (though the Tump itself is gone 

 now). If these years of active warfare do not account for the tumuli at Pontnlas, 

 at Madley, at Thruxton, and other places on the southern side of the county, his- 

 tory does not award to them any other origin. It must, however, be added, that 

 this border district, the Marches of Wales, continued to be the scene of frequent 

 hostilities for two or three centuries after the Norman conquest, when 



" With many a stiff thwack, and many a bang, 

 Haid crab-tree with old iron rang." 



Hudihras. 



It may be stated also that the first blood shed in Herefordshire during the 

 civil war was at Pontrilas, in the parish of Ewyas Harold. On November 12th, 

 1642, the Earl of Stamford sent Colonel Kyrle to surprise a party of Welsh caval- 

 iers under Lord Herbert, who had been levying heavy contributions from the in- 

 habitants. Kyrle, with his lieutenant and three privates in advance, came upon 

 six Raglan soldiers at Pontrilas. " Who are you for? " was the challenge. "For 

 the King, and the plague take the Parliament,"' was the answer ; when hoth sides 

 fired. The cavaliers all fell, and the Parliamentarians, unwounded, rushed into 

 the village, where they killed 15 men, hung one on a tree, and, fearing an ambush, 

 they returned to Hereford.— Webb's Memorials of the Civil War in Herefordshire; 

 Vol. i., p. 197-198. 



It is time now, with so many Saxon strangers present, to give such informa- 

 tion as may be gleaned from the Cymric names in the locality. Welsh names are 

 always descriptive, often historical, and sometimes highly poetical and suggestive. 

 The station, Pandy, Ty-pany, where we arrived, means a fulling mill, which, 

 doubtless, was placed on the river HonddCl below. There is " Pandy " a few miles 

 off, at Dorstone, and numerous other Pandys, where fulling mills formerly existed. 

 The pleasant-looking little house on the knoll, as we left the station, is Ty-Derlwyn, 

 the house in the oak-grove, a new abode with an old name. Crossing the Honddft, 

 the old mansion in the valley, some half-mile to the right, is Alterynys, from Allt, 

 a groove in the side of a hill, and i/nys, the fertile land below. To the left is Tre- 

 wyn, a mansion of many meanings, for Welsh philologists don't always agree. It is 

 "Tygwyn," the White House, says one authority; it is Gwynn's house, says an- 

 other, probably from the name of the man who built or owned it. A third says the 

 word means persuasion, whilst Duncumb in the History of Herefordshire, says it sig- 

 nifies ' ' the place of making peace," alluding probably to its having been the spot on 

 which a cessation of hostilities was agreed to between some adverse chiefs (Vol. ii., 

 p. 318). At the beginning of the last century, the Delahays occupied both Trewyn 

 and Alterynys, and are said to have planted the avenue of fir-trees from one house 

 to the other, of which you would observe a few still remaining trees as we passed 

 by. In an old map of 1725 this avenue of fir-trees is represented as complete from 

 one house to the other. The trees would scarcely seem to be so old, and it would 



