On its front or west side rise the Berwyn Mountains; on the east, the Fron Fawr; and the whole is so enveloped in beautiful foliage that it is perhaps one of the most enchantingly secluded places in the kingdom. The west front of the Church affords some admirable specimens of ancient gothic architecture. The grand entrance has been through the ornamented pointed arch gateway at the west end; over which is a fine gothic window, consisting of three lancet-shaped arches, surmounted by a circular or rose window, of eight divisions; but it is too lofty to admit of close inspection, as is also the following mutilated inscription, which is above it:—
AD—ADAM—DMS fecit hoc opus. Pace beata quiescat. Amen.
The rest of the last line is obliterated. The following translation may not be unacceptable:—
AD—ADAM—DMS built (or rebuilt) this work. May he rest in happy peace.
The letters MD seem to have been meant as part of the date marking the time when the Church was repaired, and go far to prove the little veneration shown to this once elegant structure by the neighbouring people, and that its dilapidation was unusually rapid. Now, we will suppose that the inscription MD means 1500, and allow that it was then in complete repair, and that it was one of the first Abbeys dissolved, say in 1538; for I do not read that Henry VIII. began his reformation among the religious houses before that time; I find in Camden’s Britannia, speaking of this place, the following passage:—“Save onely a little Abbey, now wholly decaied, but standing most richly and pleasantly in a vale, which among the woody hils cutteth itself overthwart in manner of a crosse, whereupon it was called in Latin Vallis Crucis, that is, the Vale of the Crosse, and in British, Lhane Gwest.” { 62a}
Camden’s great work, Britannia, was published in 1586; and from these facts I draw my conclusion that it was ransacked and destroyed soon after its dissolution, as I suppose it was—
Dissolved by order of Henry VIII. A.D. 1538; { 62b}
Wholly decayed, as by Camden, 1586. { 62c}
Of the magnificence of this ancient Monastery no adequate description can now be given, and scarcely an idea formed of what it has been. The body and nave of the Church are disfigured, and nearly choked up with masses of ruins, and large and luxuriant forest trees, among which the ash and sycamore are most predominant. The length of the Church is about one hundred and eighty feet; the width I can only guess at, as the north side is wholly gone. An author before me says the nave was thirty-one feet broad, and the side aisle thirteen feet.