Archaeologia Cambrensis VOL. LXXX, PART II-SEVENTH SERIES, VOL. V. DECEMBER, 1925. OF THE VANISHED TOMBS OF BRECON CATHEDRAL. BY MISS GWENLLIAN E. F. MORGAN, M.A., J.P., Brecon. Who loved the Church so well and gave so largely to it, John Webster. So much interest has of late been taken in our Cathedral, that it may be well to call attention to some of the incidents connected with its history, which may have escaped the notice of those who visit it, and even of our own townspeople. It is an extraordinary fact, that though in the early part of the seventeenth century the church contained sixteen life-size effigies in alabaster, wood or stone of those who lay beneath the tombs on which their figures rested, only four of them remain to-day, and these do not include Walter and Christina Aubrey's monument, which was brought from Christ College Chapel, and does not belong to this Cathedral. Until the Reformation, when the monks' church was thrown open, and the whole building was used by the VOL. LXXX. 17 parish for its services, no interment had taken place in the chancel, excepting that of Reginald de Breos, Lord of Brecknock, one of the builders of the Early English part of St. John's Church. The other Lords of Brecknock rested elsewhere-the de Bohuns in the chapter house of Llanthony Abbey, near Gloucester (where their graves were desecrated and destroyed by the making of a canal in the early part of the nineteenth century), and in Walden Abbey; the Staffords were equally unfortunate in the destruction of their tombs. From the earliest times the parishioners were buried in the nave and in the churchyard, the Priors in their chapter house, and the monks in their own cemetery to the east of the church. It is fortunate that a record was made by travellers who visited Brecon through the centuries, otherwise we should know nothing of the tombs which have disappeared, nor of the cause of their destruction. The first who came here for Leland gave no account of the interior of our churches-was Thomas Churchyarde in 1587, who in his "Worthines of Wales " gave a description of the monuments in verse; the next visitor was Capt. Richard Symonds, an officer in the army of King Charles I, who on July 4, 1645, made notes in his diary of all that interested him before the outrage had taken place, which shortly afterwards destroyed the tombs and much else. If King Charles I. when he stayed at the Priory House as the guest of Col. Herbert Price on the night of August 5 in that year, went into the church (as it was his wont to do) he saw the building before its desecration. Symonds was followed by Thomas Dineley, who accompanied the Duke of Beaufort in his progress through Wales in 1684, and who wrote the official account of the same, which is still preserved in MS. at Badminton. Dineley took a particular interest in all the churches he visited, and especially noted tombs and inscriptions, making many careful drawings of effigies and coats of arms. To him we are indebted for the description of the havoc wrought by the Parliamentary Army, which was quartered in the church some forty years before, events which would have been vividly present to the memories of many of those whom he met when in Brecon. This MS. is the only record we have of what took place. The impressions of these three writers have been published, but a most valuable account of the inscriptions. on the gravestones by Hugh Thomas, the Brecon herald, in a MS. volume of Epitaphs in the Harleian Collection at the British Museum (Harl. MS. 3325, ff. 13-57) has never been printed. This book throws much light on the position of the tombs and gravestones at the beginning of the eighteenth century, which is a great addition to the monumental history of the Cathedral. So many of the stones have disappeared, many that are still there are not above the graves of those they commemorate, and in many instances through the lamination of the stone, which is apt to scale, all traces of the original inscriptions have vanished. Theophilus Jones made a careful copy of the names on the principal gravestones, and gave a fairly accurate account of them as they were at the beginning of the nineteenth century in his History of Brecknockshire; but the interments of the eighteenth century had displaced so many stones in the pavement, that his account is not as true to fact as that of Hugh Thomas, though it is useful in a special degree as giving an exact statement as to the position of the graves in the chancel. The stones over those buried beneath the sanctuary were turned out at the restoration of 1862, when the late Sir Gilbert Scott banished tablets and slabs (some of them of great beauty, with fine, raised lettering) to other parts of the church, substituting shiny, modern tiles for some most interesting memorials of the dead. To return to the effigies we have lost: the earliest was the wooden figure of Reginald de Breos, which was probably similar to that of Robert, Duke of Normandy, still to be seen in Gloucester Cathedral, one of the oldest existing wooden effigies we now possess, having been made about 1280; that of de Breos may have been older. Churchyarde's description is as follows: "Cross legged. . as was the ancient trade, Of most hard wood; which wood, as divers say, A crouching hound, as heralds thought full meet, Symonds saw this in 1645, and in spite of the saying that neither worm nor time could destroy it, he wrote: "there is the body of a man cut in wood, cross-legged, a shield on his arm, very old and decayed." It was soon after partially destroyed by Cromwell's soldiers, and by the middle of the nineteenth century Major Davis, an officer stationed here, speaks of fragments of the wooden effigies of Reginald de Breos being used by the washerwomen of Brecon, though a few years before Theophilus Jones thought it had entirely disappeared. Churchyarde mentions "the tomb of stone full fair and finely wrought" on which in the choir " One Waters lies with wife fast by his side," and near it the monument of Meredith Thomas, "this tomb of stone," though he does not say whether there were figures on it, so they have not been included in the twelve lost effigies, but this tomb had ceased to exist soon afterwards. On the north side of the chancel stood the most remarkable monument in the church, to the memory of three members of the family of Games of Aberbran and their wives, which consisted of "three tiers of oaken beds," with two effigies on each bed. This tomb must have been truly magnificent in its carving, gilding and colour, being adorned with numerous armorial bearings, and rising to a height of 10 or 12 ft. Churchyarde gives an exhaustive description of this fine and unusual memorial, and Symonds saw it in its untarnished beauty. But when Dineley came a sad change had taken place. He records : that in the chancel is seen a wooden monument with as wooden rhymes about it in Old English characters; there is but one large figure left thereon, the rest is said to have been burned by the Usurper's soldiers. It belonged to a good family, Games of Aberbran." They were of the same race as Games of Newton, and they may have been Catholics, as was their kinsman, Sir John Games, which would have specially roused the fury of the Roundheads. It was not until the early part of the nineteenth century that the "oaken beds were removed, and the only remaining figure is now near the entrance to the south stairs to the rood-loft in the nave. It is a figure of Mrs. Games, and is remarkably interesting as showing the dress of the period, 1555. The lady's head in a French hood rests on two cushions, her hands are clasped in prayer, two gold chains are round her neck, from her waist is suspended a pomander at the end of a long gold chain; some traces of colour and gold remain, but her arms and face are mutilated, and this effigy is the only relic remaining of the splendid monument, which once occupied so prominent a position in the chancel of our Cathedral. Wooden effigies were uncommon, and this is of late date. At present there are ninety-six wooden monumental effigies existing in England and Wales, and authentic records exist of twenty-four which have been destroyed; of these six were wantonly burned and ruined in Brecon Cathedral. Dr. Alfred C. Fryer observes in his great work on the subject, Wooden Monumental Effigies in England and Wales: "that our English effigies in wood are some of the finest existing in Europe, and we are thankful that the ravages of time and the relentless hand of the modern restorer have left us still some treasures, which we may consider representative of a great national school of mediæval handicraft." |