Roger Vaughan went on to become MP for Radnorshire and, in the 1580s, bought Kinnersley Castle, just over the English border, which he restored extensively, putting in large windows to flood its rooms with light. A ceiling, decorated with esoteric symbols in its moulding, is said to have been designed by John Dee. As Dee was not known as an interior decorator, it can only be assumed that, if he was the designer, it was meant to serve some protective purpose, but that’s another story.
Five years later, in 1565, local merchant John Beddoes, after whom Presteigne High School is named, left an area of land, the rent from which is still used to pay for the ringing of the nightly curfew. But that was another book.
Twm Siôn Cati – Thomas Jones, of Tregaron – is still a well-known folk hero in south-west Wales, often celebrated as the Welsh Robin Hood. He was pardoned by Elizabeth not long after she came to the throne. And he did indeed become John Dee’s cousin by marriage.
It was Tracy Thursfield, student of the Hidden, who first told me about the shewstone (which was last heard of at Brampton Bryan Castle, home of the Harleys, who were also connected with Wigmore Abbey) and gave regular advice throughout. Mairead Reidy, ace researcher, found more details and provided a rich assortment of relevant literature. Keith Parker, author of A History of Presteigne, provided the background on Dee’s family, Nicholas Meredith and Stephen Price, and Hilary Marchant suggested the sites of judicial premises.
Thanks once again to the present owners of the two houses at Nant-y-groes. Also Duncan Baldwin and Lucille, for legal advice. Apart from those involving royalty and high government figures, there’s little evidence of the way Elizabethan trials were conducted, especially at assize level. It seems unlikely that there were barristers for the prosecution and defence, as we know them today, which suggests that most of the questioning of witnesses was done by the judge himself. The rights of the accused to offer up a defence were not automatic and might depend on the generosity of the judge.
Thanks to Sir Richard Heygate, co-author with Philip Carr-Gomm of (every home should have one) The Book of English Magic for links to portals and John Dee; Ed Wilson for London geography and yet more legal assistance; Bev Craven, masterly graphic artist and connoisseur of the curious; Alun Lenny for the background on Plant Mat, Twm and Dee’s Welsh roots; my wife, Carol, for the usual massive and perceptive edit; and Sara O’Keeffe at Corvus for a final overview… and a lot of patience.
Pilleth Church on Brynglas is well worth a visit. The holy well remains, if not the statue of the Virgin and – as someone said – it’s so light and welcoming up there these days that it looks as if ‘work’ has been carried out there.
The name of Rhys Gethin, who achieved Owain Glyndwr’s greatest victory, at Pilleth, is still remembered in Wales – most recently as the professed author of communications from the small terrorist unit, Meibion Glyndwr, who ran an arson campaign against English-owned holiday cottages in north Wales in the 1980s. The most intriguing account of Glyndwr’s campaign and its aftermath is Alex Gibbon’s The Mystery of Jack of Kent and the Fate of Owain Glyndwr.
My apologies to Nicholas Meredith, who may have been an entirely honest and decent businessman and property dealer.
The Mappa Mundi can be seen at Hereford Cathedral.
Legends of guardians of ancient sites are well known on the Welsh border. And some stories of guardian manifestations are rather too recent to qualify as old legends. An archaeologist once told me he’d been refused permission to excavate a Bronze Age mound on a farm in Powys because the farmer had himself once sunk a spade into it and seen something so dreadful he’d not gone near it since, with any kind of implement.
According to legend, the restless spirit of Amy Robsart at Cumnor Place was removed from Cumnor by ten priests with candles.
Poor Amy. That seems wrong, somehow.