[Picture: No. 6. Side view of Bodowyr Cromlech]
[Picture: No. 7. End view of Bodowyr Cromlech]
We were up early this morning but it rained so fast we could not leave the house till ten. I employed the interval in copying a map of the Island on a large scale which is to be filled up as we proceed. Accompanied by our new acquaintance we first visited Llanedwyn { 17} church where he officiates for the first time next Sunday. The church yard and a great part of the parish has lately been enclosed by Lord Uxbridge’s park walls and we were not a little surprized to find a (fol. 33_a_) porter’s lodge and a locked gate on the church road.
In the church yard is a flat stone with a Latin inscription to Rowlands the antiquarian who held this living with Llanidan for many years. We found by the date that he died in one thousand seven hundred and twenty-seven.
What is very extraordinary for the author of such a book as _Mona Antiqua_ we were told he was never above once out of the Island in his life.
[Picture: No. 8. Carnedd in Lord Uxbridge’s Park, North Side]
Llanedwyn church is said by this gentleman to have been originally founded by Edwen neice or daughter to king Edwin anno domini six hundred and four though none of the present building we presume can boast of that antiquity it being formed after the present model of Welsh churches. Yet it retains its bason for holy water, its modern crosses, and a curious inscription cut on the back of one of the pews, the letters running in a circle with I. H. S. in the centre. I believe the inscription is Welsh: the character (fol. 38) apparently that made use of in the time of Henry the seventh. From hence we pursued our walk across the park towards Lord Uxbridge’s house stopping in the way to examine a very large Carnedd { 18} or artificial hillock formed of loose stones but now overgrown with turf and trees. This remain is one of the most considerable in the island measuring one hundred and thirty-four paces in circumference. On walking round it we observed a square opening on the south side which I entered on my hands and knees and found it about ten feet long, four wide and three high, the sides formed of three large flat stones placed edgeways in the ground supporting the roof which consists of only two. I have endeavoured to be as exact as I could in my drawings of this cistfaen (which without doubt it was) and employed as the grave of some considerable personage (folio 38_a_) in ancient times though Mr. Rowlands appropriates the carnedd to a very different use and connects it with the religion of the Druids. In his time three skeletons were discovered in digging near the surface of the carnedd which gave him an idea of its being a place of sacrifice but he had never an opportunity of viewing the interior (the opening having been discovered within these few years) he was unable to speak with certainty on the subject. This was certainly the mode of sepulture among the Britons, and northern invaders before the introduction of Christianity, and many of the open parts of England especially Wiltshire & Dorsetshire abound in them, there they are denomenated barrows, in Derbyshire & the northern counties they are called lows. The term carnedd implies a heap of stones.