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GILLI.

it must have been previous to the reign of grofs fuperftition among the Welsh, otherwife the fculptor would have employed his chizzel in ftriking out legendary ftories, inftead of the elegant knots and interlaced work that cover the ftone.

THOSE, who fuppofe it to have been erected in memory of the dead flain in battle on the fpot, draw their argument from the number of adjacent tumuli, containing human bones, and fculls often marked with mortal wounds; but these earthy fepulchres are of more antient times than the elegant sculpture of this pillar will admit. This likewife (from the croffes) is evidently a Chriftian monument. The former were only in ufe in pagan days. THERE is likewife, near to it, an antient chapel, now a farmhouse, called Gelli, or the Hazel-grove, the name of an adjacent tract. This might have relation to the cross; as well as a place for performance of divine fervice to the abbot of Bafingwerk, who had a house at no great diftance. This tract (mis-spelt by the English, Geteley), with the wood (at that time on it) was granted by Edward I. to the abbot and convent, on the tenth of November, at Westminster, before the death of our laft prince. He also gave him power to grub up the wood; which by the nakedness of the place appears to have been done most effectually.

FARTHER to the weft is another inclofed mountain called Glol, my own property; part is covered with hazels and large white-thorn trees (perhaps a continuation of the Gelli), part is very rocky, part a fine fheep-walk. In many places were feveral druidical circles, which I believe are now injured by the removal of the ftones for various ufes. In the rougher parts of

this inclofure are often feen vipers, which always prefer the dry and funny parts of a country.

ON Sarn-Hulkin, a little common to the east of Glol, was a very long but low tumalus, fuppofed by the vulgar to have been a giant's grave, from a tradition that one of our fons of Anak had been there interred. It probably did cover the remains of fome British heroes of the common size, who there found their grave, after fome fierce action, I have before supposed to have happened before the place.

THE township of Tre'r-Abbot, one of the eight which compose our parish, joins to this part of Tre-Moftyn. In it ftands the houfe of the fame name, originally the country-feat of the abbots of Bafingwerk, but long fince the property of the Davies's, lately fold to Edward Jones, of Wepre, efq. From the proof that gentleman has given of his literary abilities in drawing up refolutions of the Holywell affociation, in December 1792, must lament they are not oftener exerted, the occafion alone excepted.

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THIS township was once exempted from the payment of tythes by a modus, originally granted by the abbot of Bafingwerk, but which by negligence has been totally loft.

THE house, in Mr. Miles Davies, produced a very extraordinary genius indeed! The talents of this eccentric gentleman were poetical. He lived about the year 1716, and published three volumes of his Athenæ Britannica. In his Martii Calende five laudes Cambro Britannia, is a Latin poem on St. David's Day. I never could get the fight of the books, but was indebted to the Rev. William Cole, late of Milton, near Cambridge,

Q 2

SARN-HWLKIN

TRE'R-ABBOT.

MILES DAVIES.

LLYN HELYG.

Cambridge, for the following extract; which will, I dare fay, content the reader, as it does me.

Roberto atque Manfel, Buckley, Vaughan, et

Trevor et Hunmer, eumque Salefbury,
Stradlinque, Conway, Kemps, Anwill,
Morganius Theleolque Mofton.

Bennet, beata Ecumenicon Notâ,

Davidis ortu, eft Davifus nepos

Wynne atque Griffith, atque Pennant,

Llwyd quoque Powell, et Ellis Humphreys, &c.

HAVING reached the farthest part of our parish, to the northweft, I return along the great heath Mynydd Tegen, or TegenMountain, which yet preferves the antient name of Tegengl, which comprehended the three modern hundreds of Coleshill, Prestatyn, and Rudland. It had been the property of Edwin, defcended from Roderick the Great, and called prince of Tegengl. His Llys, or royal refidence, was, in 1041, near Llaneurgan or Northop. This common, for I cannot call it mountain, ftretches along the whole of the higher parts of our parish, and is covered with the erica vulgaris, or common heath. It feeds numbers of sheep, and is part of the mineral tract of Flintshire.

THE manor of Moftyn, of which Sir Roger Moftyn is lord, includes the greater part of the mountain, and reaches to the fen. It was derived from the heirefs of the houfe, defcended from her ancestor, prince Edwin.

A LARGE piece of water, now well ftocked with fish, made by Sir Roger Moftyn, baronet, grandfather to the present owner,

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lies near that end of the heath. In the winter it is the resort of ducks and teal.

On the eaft-fide of Moftyn pool, in Tegen mountain, is a grave bounded at each end by a rude flone, above four feet high It contains the remains of captain Edward Morgan, of the adjacent houfe of Plas Captain, and of the refpectable family of the Morgans, of Gwlgray, in the adjoining parish of Llan Afaph. Some years ago a perfon of ftrange curiofity opened the grave, and found the skeleton. On the head was a red cap, I think of velvet, and round his neck a filk handkerchief. By him lay his fword, and his helmet; and beneath the skeleton two bullets, which had fallen out of the body on its diffolution; all which verify the report of his having been flain in battle, or in fome fkirmish during the civil wars, and that he was interred, according to his wish, under the spot on which he fell. In a collection of pedegrees lent to me by Thomas Gryffith, efq. of Rhual, I find this short memorial of the captain, in the pedegree of his family: Capt. Edward Morgan, flain at Cheshire raife.' If he was flain in that county, I cannot fuppofe that his body would have been carried fo far; nor can I account for this relation, or for the body being found here, unless that the above is a mistake, and that he fell in fome fkirmifh near to his own houfe.

AT a small distance from Plás Captain, is Plás-mawr, at prefent the property of Sir Edward Price Lloyd, bart. of Pengwern, in right of his worthy grandmother, Frances, daughter and heiress. to Bell Jones, fecretary in the civil board of ordnance in the Tower. He erected a handsome monument in Whiteford church in memory of his father Robert Jones, and others of his predecef

PLAS CAPTAIN.

fors.

LUSUSES.

ENTRENCHMENT,

fors. He died, and was buried in the chapel of the Tower, aged 49, near the remains of his wife Frances, who died November 24th, 1723, aged 48.

ABOUT a mile farther, the turnpike, which is named the Flint road, croffes the upper road from Newmarket to Holywell.`

IT is the first turnpike known on the Holyhead road. The act was obtained in 1755, and contained, befides the district of Flint, thofe of Ellefmere, Chefter, and Mold. The part in question is called Llwybr-bir, or the long-path, for it extends along the mountain westward, as far as Brick-kiln.

On the right hand, as you pass towards that hamlet, on a rocky elevated part, called Gelli, is a multitude of loofe ftones, lying on the furface. They are of the lime-ftone kind, mere lufufes, affuming moft fingular forms; fome are excavated, and often perforated. This must have been done when they were in a soft state, for fince their formation nothing has fallen on them but the rain of heaven, and that could not effect the phenomenon.

SCATTERED Over this part of the mountain are feveral rounded tumuli; and to the left, at some distance, is a work, probably coeval with them. On the flope of the weft part of the race-ground is an entrenchment of a circular form, about a hundred and fixty-three feet in diameter, furrounded with a low bank, and on the outside of that with a ditch; in one part very fhallow, in the other more deep. This circle could not have been defigned as a poft, or place of retreat from an enemy. Its entrenchment is weak, and it might eafily be commanded from above by the rifing-ground. Poffibly it might have been for fome religious purpofe, or for a place of council, or for ha

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