Valle Crucis Abbey, Cymru/Wales

 

Valle Crucis Abbey was founded in 1201 by Madog ap Gruffydd Maelor, on the site of a temporary wooden church and was the last Cistercian monastery to be built in Wales. Originally founded in the principality of Powys Fadog, Valle Crucis was the spiritual centre of the region, while Dinas Bran was the political stronghold. The abbey took its name from the nearby Pillar of Eliseg, which was erected four centuries earlier by Cyngen ap Cadell, King of Powys in memory of his great-grandfather, Elisedd ap Gwylog.
Madog was buried in the then-completed abbey upon his death in 1236. His heraldic slab was excavated from the site in 1956. Not long after Madog's death, it is believed that a serious fire badly damaged the abbey, with archaeological evidence that the church and south range were affected.
The location on which Valle Crucis was raised was originally established as a colony of twelve monks from Strata Marcella, an earlier abbey located on the western bank of the River Severn near Welshpool. The original wooden structure was replaced with stone structures of roughly faced rubble. The completed abbey is believed to have housed about sixty brethren, 20 choir monks and 40 lay-members who would have carried out the day-to-day duties including agricultural work. The numbers within the church fluctuated throughout its history and the monks and the abbey itself came under threat from various political and religious events. The abbey is believed to been involved in the Welsh Wars of Edward I of England during the 13th century, and was supposedly damaged in the uprising led by Owain Glyndŵr. Numbers also fell after the Black Death ravaged Britain.
The fortunes of Valle Crucis improved during the 15th century, and the abbey gained a reputation as a place of hospitality. Several important Welsh poets of the period spent time at the abbey including Gutun Owain, Tudur Aled and Guto'r Glyn. Guto'r Glyn spent the last few years of his life at the abbey, and was buried at the site in 1493.
In 1537, Valle Crucis was dissolved, as it was deemed not prosperous compared to the more wealthy English abbeys. After the Dissolution of the Monasteries, the site fell into disrepair, and the building was given to Sir William Puckering on a 21 year lease by Henry VIII. The lease was renewed under the reign of Henry's son Edward VI in 1551, but after Sir William's death in 1574, the property was passed to his daughter, Hestor. In 1575 Hestor married Edward Wotton, 1st Baron Wotton, and the lease was extended to Baron Wotton in 1583 by Elizabeth I. By the late 16th century the eastern range was converted into a manor house. Valle Crucis remained with the Wotton family, and was inherited by the 2nd Baron Wotton, but upon his death it was passed to Hestor Wotton, his third daughter. Hestor married Baptist Noel, 3rd Viscount Campden and the abbey entered the family's ownership, before being sold shortly afterwards when the estate was sequestered by Parliament in 1651. By the late 18th century the building that remained were re-roofed and the site was used as a farm, before excavations were undertaken in the later half of the 19th century. The site is now cared for by Cadw, and is an open visitor attraction.
Architectural layout
Valle Crucis Abbey consisted of the church plus several adjoining out buildings which enclosed a square courtyard. The church itself ran West to East in the traditional cruciform style, today much of the original church is ruined, though the west end front wall survives, including the masonry of the rose window. The outbuildings including the adjoining east range, which survives mainly intact and the west range, which housed the lay brethren’s frater, but is now demolished. Completing the four sides of the inner courtyard was the southern frater and kitchen, which faced the church; these two building are also now ruins, with only foundation stones remaining. The east and west ranges housed the cloisters, with the east range also leading to the final structure, the abbot's lodgings which settled between the range and the church but outside the courtyard. The site is also home to the only remaining monastic fishpond in Wales, but suffered from being remodelled as a reflecting pool in the 18th century.
As well as the west end front wall, extensive parts of the east end of the structures survive to the present day. The chancel walls, the southern part of the transept, the east range of the cloister together with the chapter house and sacristy and the lower part of the reredorter all survive mainly intact. In 1870 the west end wall was restored by George Gilbert Scott.

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EMBLEMS OF WALES-The leek and the daffodil

EMBLEMS OF WALES
The leek and the daffodil
According to legend, St David ordered Welsh soldiers to wear leeks in their helmets in battle that took place in a ...field full of leeks against the Saxons to avoided striking their own countrymen and it helped to secure a great victory. What is known is that in the 14th century, possibly at the Battle of Crecy, Welsh archers used green and white uniforms to identify themselves and in the 16th century there is a reference to the leek in the account book of Princess Mary Tudor. Shakespeare then refers to the custom of wearing a leek as an "ancient tradition" and whose character Henry V tells Fluellen that he is wearing a leek "for I am Welsh, you know, good countryman."
Throughout the years, leeks have been associated with the practice of medicine. The famous Myfddfai Physicians of Carmarthenshire used the vegetable to cure a variety of illnesses. It was highly regarded as a cure for the common cold, a protection against wounds in battle or being struck by lightning, a means of foretelling the future, of keeping away evil spirits and a tasty, healthy ingredient in cawl, the traditional Welsh broth. If placed under a pillow, leeks could help young maidens see an apparition of their future husbands as well as assist in alleviating the pains of childbirth.
The leek is worn in the caps of today's Welsh soldiers every year on St. David's Day. On the same day, in the prestigious Welsh Guards Regiment, a large raw leek has to be eaten by the youngest recruit to the cheers of his comrades. The green and white plume worn in the "Bearskin" hats of the Guards also identifies them as belonging to the Welsh Regiment.
The leek is often substituted with the daffodil, probably as a result of the similarity of their names in Welsh, as the Welsh for leek is Cenhinen, while the Welsh for daffodil is Cenhinen Bedr. Over the years it has become adopted as a second emblem of Wales.

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Welsh Recipes: Glamorgan cheese sausage rolls

                                       

Welsh Recipes: Glamorgan cheese sausage rolls
Ingredients
For the pastry
...
175g gluten-free flour (we used Doves Farm, widely available)
85g butter
pinch cayenne pepper
1 egg yolk mixed with 3 tbsp cold water
For the filling
100g gluten-free breadcrumbs
100g Caerphilly cheese, grated
1 small leek, finely chopped
1 tsp mustard seeds, crushed
3 egg yolks
handful tarragon or thyme leaves (optional)
Method
To make the pastry, put the flour, butter and cayenne pepper into a food processor, then whiz into fine breadcrumbs. sprinkle the egg and water mixture onto the flour and pulse again until the mixture begins to come together. Tip the mixture onto a board, then gently squeeze the pastry until it begins to come together in a ball, adding more water if it feels dry. Divide the mixture in half, roll each piece into a 12 x 30cm rectangle and slip onto a baking sheet. Do not chill.
Heat oven to 200C/fan 180C/gas 6. Mix the filling ingredients together, except one egg yolk, which you need for glazing, in a food processor. Divide in two and roll each into a 30cm-long sausage shape. Lay a cheese sausage on one side of the pastry. Brush the sausage and pastry with egg yolk and fold the pastry over the top to encase the sausage. Seal the two edges, trim the ends, then cut into 2cm pieces. Arrange on a baking sheet and chill for 30 mins.
Brush the rolls with a little more egg yolk, place herbs on top, if you like, then bake for 12-15 mins until golden brown.See more

Jack Daniel's Distillery, Lynchburg, Tennessee

                                             

Statue of Jack Daniel in front of the subterranean fresh water spring from whence he once drew the water used in the production of his whiskey (Jack Daniel's Distillery, Lynchburg, Tennessee)

According to the Jack Daniel's website, founder Jasper Newton "Jack" Daniel was born in September 1846, although seemingly no one knows the exact date because the birth records were destroyed in a courthouse fire. If the 1846 date is correct, he might have become a licensed distiller at the age of 20, as the distillery claims a founding date of 1866. Other records list his birth date as September 5, 1846, and in the 2004 biography Blood & Whiskey: The Life and Times of Jack Daniel, author Peter Krass maintains that land and deed records show that the distillery was actually not founded until 1875. Jack was one of twelve children fathered by Calaway Daniel. Jack's mother, Lucinda Cook Daniel, died in 1847,^[6] after which his father remarried and had several more children. Jack Daniel's grandfather, Joseph "Job" Daniel emigrated from Wales as did his Scottish wife to the United States. He was of Welsh, Scottish, English, and Scots-Irish descent.^[7] In 2012, a Welshman, Mark Evans, claimed to have discovered the original recipe,^[8] in a book written by his great-great-grandmother in 1853, whose brother-in-law emigrated to Tennessee. Jack died in 1911 from blood poisoning which started from an infection. The infection allegedly began in

Jack Daniel's - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

They start them young in Cymru/Wales to sing! LOL

BBC News - Plaque for Tredegar ironworks engineer Rhys Davies

Plaque for Tredegar ironworks engineer Rhys Davies

By Paul Heaney BBC News

The plaque has been placed on a wall of the Cambrian pub in Tredegar  

 

A plaque has been unveiled in Blaenau Gwent in recognition of an engineer from Tredegar who is said to have changed American history. Rhys Davies left south Wales in 1833 to help build Tredegar Ironworks in Richmond, Virginia, which was named in his honour. The works he built extended the American Civil War by giving the Confederate South a huge arsenal. It later provided materials and jobs to rebuild the South after the war. Peter Morgan Jones, chairman of Blaenau Gwent Heritage Forum which funded the plaque, said Mr Davies was not particularly well known in Wales despite "changing American history".

"I'd like the plaque to remind us that the people this town produced went on to have an enormous impact on world history”

End Quote Peter Morgan Jones Chairman of Blaenau Gwent Heritage Forum Mr Davies is said to have lived and trained in Tredegar from 1800 as an engineer and millwright when the town was one of the biggest centres of iron making in the world. Some years later he worked with one of Napoleon's former marshals in France who was building ironworks there. His life story may never have become apparent if it was not for a small article in a Hereford-based newspaper, according to Mr Jones. "I came across a tiny paragraph in the Hereford Times taken from a Richmond newspaper in 1838 which stated that a Rhys Davies from Tredegar in south Wales had died," he said. "It gave his potted history and without that we wouldn't have known exactly what he did here." The American Civil War Centre now stands on the site of the Tredegar Ironworks in Virginia, where Mr Davies is better known. Nathan Madison, a researcher from the centre, said Mr Davies died before the civil war started but the works he designed had a big impact. "Francis Deane, the man who started our ironworks, didn't ask for a man from Wales or Tredegar, he asked specifically for Rhys Davies to design it," Mr Madison said. "Richmond's role in the civil war was drastically changed because of the ironworks that Davies helped found. "After the war the South was struggling to rebuild a lot of the infrastructure lost during the war - it's questionable if it could have been rebuilt if it wasn't for Tredegar being there." Mr Jones said he hoped the plaque that now recognised Mr Davies's achievements would add to the town's legacy. He added: "There was something about this place at that time which inspired the most extraordinary people. "I'd like the plaque to remind us that the people this town produced went on to have an enormous impact on world history."

 Note: It was an Adams family in Mass. that was a major supply line for the Union Army in the Civil War and they too had Welsh background. Also Jeff Davis president of the Confederacy and Lincoln President of the USA both had Welsh background as did many of the generals and soldiers on both sides!