informed of almost every circumstance recorded in the MS. and elegy, by Mr. Owen the tenant farmer, who pointed out the field which produced the extraordinary crop of wheat, and the ford by which Mrs. Williams and her children crossed the Severn; spoke of the burning of the house; and mentioned a tradition that two members of the family were buried in the garden, which then (1829) formed part of an orchard, and bore no vestige of their interment.

The writer of these lines has reason to believe that the "Cae Bendith" continues, in 1870, to be an object of interest to Welshmen, and sometimes even a place of pilgrimage.

Sir J. Gardner Wilkinson, in his account of the agriculture of the ancient Egyptians,1 says:

"The wheat, as at the present day, was all bearded, and the same varieties doubtless existed in ancient as in modern times; amongst which may be mentioned the seven-eared quality described in Pharaoh's dream. This is the kind which has been lately grown in England, and which is said to have been raised from grains found in the tombs of Thebes."

Triticum compositum-Egyptian wheat-is drawn by Sowerby and described by Lindley, in Loudon's Encyclopædia of Plants. The date there assigned to its introduction to Britain is 1799. Its sudden and abundant appearance at Ysgafell more than a century earlier, to persons ignorant of the very existence of such a species, must, therefore, have been surprising, and might reasonably under the circumstances be attributed to an especial Providence.

A memoir of "the good Henry Williams" may be found in Joshua Thomas's Hanes y Bedyddwyr, p. 134 ; and another in Titus Lewis's Hanes Wladol a Chrefyddol Prydain Fawr," p. 463.

1 Vol. ii, c. 6, p. 39. Ed. 1854.

SOME ACCOUNT OF THE

ROOD SCREENS AND TIMBER WORK OF

POWYS-LAND.

BY DAVID WALKER, ARCHITECT, LIVERPOOL.

No. 2.-ROOD SCREEN, LLANWNOG CHURCH.

THE village of Llanwnog, formerly Llan-Wynnog, like many towns and hamlets in Wales, derives its name from the patron saint to whom its church is dedicated. Gwynnog, whose father is represented to have been Gildas ab Caw, the first British historian, lived in the latter part of the sixth century, and had three brothers, two of whom with himself being patron saints of churches in the bordering counties.

Saint Gwynnog would appear to have been an ecclesiastic of note; some fragments of late decorated stained glass remaining in an unpretending window in the north wall of church, delineate him in vestments with an episcopal mitre on his head, whilst an inscription, which now cannot be traced, according to Gwalter Mechain,' ran underneath the figure as follows:-"Sanctus Gwinocus, cujus animæ propitietur Deus. Amen."

The date of the foundation of the church cannot with accuracy be ascertained from existing architectural remains, owing to the fact of its having undergone during the past few years almost total rebuilding; the typical continuous nave, and the treatment of what old masonry is to be found, would lead the archæologist to conclude that whatever it possessed of decorative architectural features existed within the walls of the edifice, and were executed from the material at hand, and that usually adopted in constructional works in the district.

1 Cambrian Magazine, vol. i, p. 31.

Suffice it to say that it does possess a rood screen of exquisite design, an adjunct deemed so essential to proper ritualistic observance in times past; and it is gratifying to find that with a proper spirit of conservation it has been left undisturbed as a relic of antiquity, in the re-arrangement of the seats for the chancel and

nave.

The position of the screen, which extends the entire width of the nave, is at the distance of about one-third the length of the church, from the east end, and is placed so as to effectually mark the line of demarcation between the nave and chancel; a rude stair, formed within the thickness of the north wall on the west side of the screen, leads to the rood loft, formerly occupied by the choir, the internal dimensions of which being twentyfour feet by seven feet wide.

The illustrations represent the screen looking towards the chancel and nave respectively; that looking eastward, it will be observed, indicates an entirely different treatment in several details to the other face; for instance, the front of the loft is spaced for panels of a different degree of richness and character to those on the west front, and the details of the cornices generally are dissimilar, although all have undoubtedly been executed by the same hand, with the exception of the panels on the west front of the rood loft, which are an unfortunate modern innovation, without an approach to the style of the old work. Admirable in treatment and spirited in execution, as this rood screen undoubtedly is, its denuded state leads one to feel regret that those who were responsible for its preservation in times past, should have so far forsaken their trust as to have allowed much of the very beautiful detail that adorned it to be removed, leaving what was once rich and varied in outline now little else than skeleton framing.

From a sketch made by the Rev. John Parker, in 1836, (which with other sketches from the same very able artist antiquary, have been placed at the service of the Club for reference, by Stanley Leighton, Esquire), it would appear that the screen was, at that date, in a