ORDER OF COURT AGAINT DAVID JEFFREYS POWELL, DEFENDANT. In the High Court of Justice, Queen's Bench Division. AUGUST 12TH, 1886. The Honble. Mr. Justice Field, Judge in Chambers. 1886. G. No. 1126. BETWEEN HOWELL GWYN, William Powell Watkins, and Daniel Powell (on behalf of themselves and all other Commoners of the Great Forest of Brecon), and John Price and Watkin Joseph (as Surveyors of Roads within the District of the said Forest), Plaintiffs, and DAVID JEFFREYS POWELL and JOHN WILLIAMS, Defendants. UPON HEARING the Solicitors for the Plaintiffs and for the Defendant, David Jeffreys Powell, IT IS ORDERED that judgment be entered in this Action against the said Defendant that he the said Defendant, David Jeffreys Powell, be perpetually restrained by the Injunction of this Court from getting any limestone or other minerals from the said Allotment for the purpose of sale or otherwise than as he is entitled to get the same as a Commoner of the Great Forest of Brecon. And that the Judgment also adjudge payment by the said Defendant of the Plaintiff's costs as between Solicitor and Client of this Action up to the 6th July, 1886, including therein all costs of and incidental to the Agreement for Settlement dated the 6th July, 1886, and also of and occasioned by this Order and the Judgment thereunder. DATED the 12th day of August, 1886. [A similar Order was made against John Williams, Defendant.] INJUNCTION AGAINST DAVID JEFFREYS POWELL, DEFENDANT. AUGUST 14TH, 1886. [COPY.] In the High Court of Justice. 1886. G. No. 1126. BETWEEN HOWELL GWYN, William Powell Watkins, and Daniel Powell (on behalf of themselves and all other Commoners of the Great Forest of Brecon), and John Price and Watkin Joseph (as Surveyors of Roads within the District of the said Forest), Plaintiff's, and DAVID JEFFREYS POWELL and JOHN WILLIAMS, Defendants. The 14th day of August, 1886. PURSUANT to the Order of the Honourable Mr. Justice Field, dated the 12th August, 1886. WHEREBY IT WAS ORDERED that Judgment be entered in this Action against the said Defendant that he the said Defendant, David Jeffreys Powell, be perpetually restrained by the Injunction of this Court from getting any Limestone or other minerals from the said Allotment for the purpose of sale or otherwise than as he is entitled to get the same as a Commoner of the Great Forest of Brecon. And that the Judgment also adjudge payment by the said Defendant of the Plaintiffs' Costs as between Solicitor and Client of this Action up to the 6th July, 1886, including therein all costs of and incidental to the Agreement for Settlement, dated the 6th July, 1886, and also of and occasioned by this. Order and the Judgment thereunder. IT IS THIS DAY ADJUDGED that the said Defendant, David Jeffreys Powell, be perpetually restrained from getting Limestone and all other matters as mentioned in the preceding part of this Judgment. dated The above Costs have been taxed and allowed at £ day of 1886. as appears by a Certificate ROBINSON, PRESTON, and STOW, 35, Lincoln's Inn Fields, Plaintiffs' Solicitors. [A similar Injunction was granted against John Williams, Defendant.] NOTES ON ILLUSTRATIONS, ETC. The MAEN LLIA Stone, of which two views are given, is a large upright stone, placed on the gap in the range of the Forest mountains at the source of the Llia brook. It is uninscribed, and has been only slightly alluded to by Professor Westwood in his Lapidarium Wallic, or any of our local historians previously, though from its very size, and the commanding position occupied, it has always been a well-known landmark in the district. It is evidently of prehistoric date, and resembles the large stone on the Maes y Gwaelod farm, in Llanwrtyd Parish, and the stones under the Miarth Hill by the side of the River Usk. Apparently these stones were placed as guide-marks across a wild uninhabited county, or to a possible driftway across a main river. The Sarn Helen roadway passed close by the Maen Llia Stone, from the Gaer Camp, near Brecon, to Neath. The Maen Madoc is another upright stone, a mile or so lower down the same Sarn Helen road on the Neath side. This is an inscribed stone, and is thus described by Professor Westwood in his Lapidarium Walliæ, p. 64 and Plate 37, 1876 : "A strange inscription upon a tall stone, as represented in the Archæologia by Strange, vol. iv, Tab. 1, Fig. 2; and in Gough's Camden, vol. ii, Pl. 14, Fig. 3; copied in Jones' Brecknockshire, vol. ii, Pl. 12, Fig. 2, without any attempt at its elucidation, led me to hunt for the Maen Madoc in one of the bleakest and most unfrequented parts of South Wales, in September, 1846. "The Roman Road, Sarn Helen, or Lleon, joins the ordinary road from Defynnock to Ystradfellte, about 13 mile to the south of the Maen Llia, and Maen Madoc stands at about half a mile along, and close to the side of the Sarn Helen. "It is a tall, rude stone, 11 ft. high, 21 ft. wide, and 14 ft. thick, inclining southwards, with the inscription on its western side. The desolate bleakness of the spot is equalled by the extreme rudeness of the inscription. 66 My figure is made from a sketch taken on the spot, corrected by my rubbing, which has been reduced by the camera, and the inscription is to be read :— DERVACI FILIUS IYSTI IC IACIT. "The first letter D is reversed, and both the a's are turned upside down." The Views in the Tringarth Valley are of old sheep-washing pens, and of the rocky bed of the Llia bank, in which the stream falls gradually over successive ledges of Old Red Sandstone, and with no marked precipitous character. The presence of this sound bed of rock to build the reservoir dam upon is a source of delight and peace of mind to the engineer who is about to construct his works there for the Neath District Council. Probably in a few short years these sheep-pens and river's bed will be at the bottom of a capacious reservoir. The Penwyllt limestone views are given to illustrate the action-at-law described in Chapter VII. The limekilns seem to invite an occupier to set them going, and the Lecturer from Aberystwith College has told us that lime is invaluable to our pasture land in Breconshire. Many other interesting views of the Forest land might be given, but I have not the photographs at hand. Perhaps my readers may pay this little-known district of the Great Forest a visit, and see at first hand Nature in all her wild grandeur: not forgetting the falls of the Cilhepste and Purddin rivers, which are really within the precincts of the ancient Forest. It will be remembered that under the Manor of Hay, vol. i, p. 63, I alluded to a detached piece of ground called the Island, on the open common land, giving then a similar instance on the Great Forest of Brecknock, and described their purposes. It would seem that there were several such Island enclosures in the Great Forest : that of the Ynys Gron, or Ffynnon Ynys Gron, being the most known (the spring of water of the fenced-in land constituting an island), situate well in the Forest land as formerly marked out, and at the foot of the northern slope of the Van Frynach mountain, the nearest point to Brecknock Castle of the whole Forest. It has a cottage on it, and the land is about 3 acres. There was another small enclosure in the Tarell Valley, a large and important one at Blaenhepste Fechan, another on the Tawynne brook near the Tawe Valley, and others probably I have not traced. In the case of the Great Forest these enclosures were obviously for Forest purposes, and to enable the owners-and in later times their Agisters to keep impounded cattle and sheep on a large scale, and generally to make these enclosures the headquarters for their Forest forays and excursions. How these enclosures became separated from the Crown Forest, and held by private owners, or when, there is no knowledge extant. Possibly these special lands, being more particularly the freehold of the Crown, were sold privately to the Agister or other private person, when the Inclosure of the Forest was resolved upon. The Ynys Gron Inclosure is specially remarkable for the beautiful and strong spring of water that rises within the enclosure; and evidently the presence of such a spring originally determined the site of the Inclosure. The northern side of the Forest land has the character of the Beacon range, being in many parts abrupt and precipitous, while the southern side slopes gradually until the Old Red Sandstone formation is succeeded by the Carboniferous measures. There is now-as there has been from all time-a broad band of mountain, probably five or six miles wide, separating the enclosed and inhabited country on the north side from that on the south (the Inclosure of the Forest has made some slight difference); and it is curious and interesting to note that the ancient place-names of the farms, and the still more ancient names of the rivers and streams on one side of the range of mountains, are markedly distinct and have a separate root and origin from those on the other side. By the old Forest laws no one was allowed even to cross the Forest land, and which acted, therefore, as a complete barrier to intercommunication between the inhabitants on the Breconshire and Glamorganshire sides. And even before the Forest was formed, it is easy to understand that wholly separate tribes or families of the Welsh occupied the northern and southern slopes. The distinction in the place-names and river-names is very marked. |