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parish of Llanganten, and has since been called Cwm Llewelyn, or Llewelyn's 

 dingle. As faithful chroniclers we are bound to state, that the friends and 

 adherents of the English Monarch, and the Lords Marchers in the hundred 

 of Builth, not satisfied with betraying their unfortunate countryman, endea- 

 voured to blast his memory by the imputation of cowardice. Because he was 

 not slain at the head of his troops, they spread the report that he was found 

 ingloriously lying at full length in a field of broom, and that on receiving his 

 death wound he cursed the treacherous plant for not concealing him more 

 effectually, and they say that since that time none will grow on the spot. It 

 seems most probable that he was killed by surprise when reconnoitring the 

 motions of the enemy on the other side of the river. 



There is some probability from tradition that the great plague in the 

 early part of the fourteenth century visited Builth severely, as it did so many 

 other towns and cities throughout the country, although it is nowhere men- 

 tioned as having done so. About a mile westward of the town runs a small 

 brook called Nant-yr Aiian, or " the money brook," and here it is said that 

 the country people brought the provisions to supply the town and left them, 

 and were paid for them by money droj'ped into the runniug water so as to 

 avoid the risk of infection by those who received it. 



In the year 1691 the town was nearly destroyed by fire which broke out 

 on the 20th of December in that year ; the loss sustaineil by the sufferers who 

 apiJied for relief under this calamity was estimated at £10,780, and by persons 

 of more independent property, who did not make application, about £2,000 

 more. Letters-patent were granted by the Crown, authorising the distressed 

 inhabitants to gather alms from charitably disposed persons throughout the 

 kingdom, and under this authority a few hundred pounds were collected, 

 but the money was so misapplied that only one house was re-built from the 

 fund. In this instrument, which is illumined with the portraits of King 

 William and Mary, it is stated " that the fire raged for five hours, and that 

 from the boisterousness of the wind, it consumed the dwellings of 41 sub- 

 stantial families, with all their corn, fvirniture, effects, and merchandises, to 

 the great impovcrislnnent of the adjacent country, arid delay of trade, it being 

 a very considerable market town, and having no other market kept within 

 ten miles of it." 



We ought here to mention the mineral springs near Builth, which are 

 said now to attract many hundreds of visitors every summer, and in Pryse's 

 account of the "Breconshire and Eadnorshire Mineral Springs," are stated 

 as "combining the mineral properties of those at Llanwrtyd and Llandrindod." 

 To this statement we do not pledge ourselves ; but this may be said, that as 

 some of the Club paid a morning to the spa and pump-room, it was found on 

 inquiry that visitors aie supplied " with as much as they like to drink of 

 the saline, sulphur, and chalybeate waters for threepence each, " as the 

 attendant nymph declared, "and drink as much as you like." 



