150 MY LIFE [Chap. 



Before we left Llanbister my cousin, Percy Wilson, who 

 was preparing for ordination after taking his degree at 

 Oxford, came to stay a short time with us, and partly to see 

 again the estate of Abbey-Cwm-Hir, which his father had 

 purchased in the days of his prosperity and which was only 

 a few miles distant, being, in fact, an adjoining parish. I 

 and he walked over to see it one day, and found it to be 

 situated in a lonely wild valley bounded by lofty and rather 

 picturesque mountains. It was a small country house built 

 by my uncle, partly from the heaped-up ruins of the ancient 

 Cistercian monastery, the lower portion of the church still 

 remaining, the walls having the remains of clustered columns 

 attached to them. It would have made a charming summer 

 residence in a few years, when the shrubs and trees had 

 grown, and the whole surroundings had been somewhat 

 modified by judicious planting, especially as Mr. Wilson 

 had purchased, I believe, the entire estate, comprising the 

 greater part of the parish, and including the whole valley 

 and its surrounding mountains. 



Two pencil sketches by my brother, made in a surveyor's 

 field-book while at this place, have been preserved and are 

 here copied, as examples of his delicacy of touch and 

 power of giving artistic effect to the simplest objects. The 

 upper one is the village taken from the house we lodged in, 

 showing the low church at the end of the street, and the queer 

 little house just opposite us, occupied then by the village shoe- 

 maker, but showing some architectural pretensions as com- 

 pared with the usual cottages in a small Welsh village. The 

 lower one is a small and lonely chapel in a remote part of the 

 parish, to which the local builder has given character, while 

 the dreary surroundings are well indicated in the sketch. 



When we had finished at Llanbister, we went about ten 

 miles south to a piece of work that was new to me — the 

 making of a survey and plans for the enclosure of common 

 lands. This was at Llandrindod Wells, where there was 

 then a large extent of moor and mountain surrounded by 

 scattered cottages with their gardens and small fields, which, 



