Llyfrgell yn ddiddordeb yn ddiddorol, ac yn ddiddorol felle ac gwaeth ysgol. Alta du â'w digwydd i ddweud iawn i fynd yn ein bodeth ddiddorol, ar y cyfer yr oedd yn wneud, a fydd y gallwn cynnig i ddiddorol arkenig y brifysgol o'r yr hyn yn rhan o'r 15 ddiddorol. Felly y mae'n ddiddorol yn y rhan o'n fwy o'r lleol I'm using a lot of slides that Toby Driver, a fellow of the Society of the Royal Commission in Aberystwyth, took, but I do feel in such splendid photographs that I'm actually acting as the Tourist Board for Central Wales in trying to promote how beautiful this stunning landscape is that all of this exists in. Straddor, Florida, was founded first in 1164, and as I shall represent to you, effectively re-founded in 1184, under the patronage of one of the great princes of Wales of the 12th century, not the great prince of Wales in the 12th century, the Lord Rhys of Dehebeth. It's a landscape which is draped over the Cambrian mountains, if you know that part of the world, and spreads itself to the sea. So I was delighted when Toby showed me some of these photographs which were commissioned by our project and enabled me to show you how extraordinary this landscape is. Everything in that picture that you see, the air photograph on the right hand side, was owned by Straddor, Florida. The abbey itself is today a relatively modest monument. I don't know how many of you have been there. You can see from the air photograph on the left that it consists largely of the cruciform church, the chapter house and the northern part of the cloisters. To the north it has a cemetery of which more anon, and to the south a collection of farm buildings, again more of which anon. One of the things I shall want to be talking about is what brings people to Straddor, Florida, and in the past what brought people to Straddor, Florida. And I think fittingly, as I've displayed in the third slide on there, we have a ampula from the gate house of the abbey which we have been extensively excavating. And it's a nice symbol and token of some of the meaning that I want to talk about. I want to start with national identity, part to explain something of the title. National identity is a major consideration in today's devolved politics in Wales. And if you were to create a list of the indicators of that identity in Wales it is undoubtedly the language and the primary index of Welsh identity. It is, as you will imagine, a hugely contested area, and no, I am not going to go into the politics of that identity this evening. You might want to push me with questions a bit later on, but maybe not. The maps, the two maps, show the proportions of people in the 2001 and 2011 censuses who said that they could speak Welsh. There's a great deal of pride in this, but there's a great deal of threat. If I've been able to show you a map of 1901 and 1911 you would have seen a great erosion of that capacity to speak the language. Protecting the language is a core political activity. Language, however, as we all know, is a reductive indicator. Welsh identity is and was much more complex and subtle and varied from region to region with strong roots in history with a myth of origin set in a dim Celtic past. When I went there 40 years ago, I think I had to learn the hard way that an important aspect of this is chapel culture, dissenting chapel culture as an historic self-image identity. This lovely photograph of the congregation pouring out of Shiloh cowardice Methodist chapel in Lampeda. What is that self-identity, Godfaring, spiritual, ascetic, hard-working, family-based, communal, as well as politically, ethnically and class-resistant? I could spend the whole lecture unpacking that last phrase, but I'm not going to. A key icon and artifact of that identity is the complete Bible translated into Welsh by William Morgan of Penmachno in 1588. The sacred word in Welsh became available to an increasingly Protestant culture, one which was to find its religious, cultural and political voice through dissent. Language and text are linked with a strong sense of the sacred lived in meaning of places, a wonderful Welsh word for this, Avrog, the neighbourhood, the district, the area. And as a landscape archaeologist, the district, the area is very much where I begin in the way in which I operate in my methodologies. But in particular, I want to point to a word here-ice that some of you, I will know. It is a word that means both longing and belonging, a yearning for place, but a sense of belonging to that place at the same time. And it doesn't matter where you have gone to, whether it's New York or Patagonia. It's about why my father-in-law, Don Parry, a Welshman of long lineage and a deacon of his baptism's chapel, went just before his death to stand and pray in the ruins of the church of Stardor, Florida, and next to the grave, as he is here, of the greatest medieval Welsh poet, Davith Abwillam. And this lecture is an attempt, in a way, to understand that act of piety and his belonging to Wales. Why did he go? He's a gog. He's a man from the north of Wales. He'd come to the south of Wales in order to carry out his act of piety before his death. Well, I want to begin with history. I suspect some of the history of Wales is a little fuzzy to a lot of you. I'll try and bring a little clarity to it, and I'm going to have to drive a coach and horses through a very complicated story. The initial foundation we know from the Vatican document is in 1164, with a grant by Robert Fitz Stephen, Lord of Penarth, at night of the Clare Lords of Ceredigion. The Clare family had captured Ceredigion as marching lords in the earlier parts of the 12th century and was still in their hands in 1164, suppressing the Princeton of Ceredigion. I'm going to use a little series of maps now in which the little green panel, appropriate colour, is native Wales. Those areas, at any particular moment in these slides, under the protection of people who would class themselves as native princes. There's all sorts of issues about the word native in that context. The abbey was founded as a daughter house of Whitland, shown as blue on the map there, which itself was an Anglo-Norman foundation. However, in 1165, probably within about nine months of that initial grant, the priests of Ceredigion kicks the clares out of Ceredigion. They never return, and he confirmed, one of his first acts, he confirmed the grant of lands to start of Florida. Then, actually, and this is the more important part of the story, he re-founded it, I believe, in 1184. The annexation of Ceredigion doubled the size of the area in green, of Greece's lordship, of Dehaibath. It took me about ten years to learn how to pronounce Dehaibath, and I still haven't got it right. My lovely wife is a Welsh speaker, so I'm going to get it right. Lord Rhys is an important figure in Welsh history. He reached an accommodation with the energetic, troublesome, and aggressive Henry II at Newnham in 1171. The substance of that accommodation really was to allow Henry II to do all the other things that he was doing in the world, whether it be in France, Act X, or eventually in Ireland. He needed peace on his western flank, and he recognised in the Lord Rhys somebody he could do business with, and that famous phrase, remember, which came back from Moscow many years ago. In a technical sense, in a legal sense, Rhys was granted additional authority, as thief of Henry II, by being appointed Justicio of the South Southern Welsh Princes, English royal holdings, like Cardigan and Carmartham, where there are English royal castles, and certain marcher lodges, particularly around the fringes. Now, from 1171 to his death in 1197, we must regard Rhys really at the height of his powers. It's a narrow window of time, and Strataflores sits right in the middle of that window. He had also an alliance with, it's rather hazy, and a certain hegemony over the Princess of Gwyneth and Poes in the North. So you can extend the green that far, in terms of de Haibar's influence at this particular and important point of time. About this time, the notion and distinction between pure Awalia, pure Wales, native Wales, and marcher Wales begins to emerge, the former in Green still, and the latter remaining in uncolored terms. If you test that notion of national identity that I showed you at the beginning with the maps, and I've repeated the map here, this is really, in a sense, the moment of the origin myth of the linguistic divide, which is simplifying Welsh political culture, that is between the English speakers and the Welsh as Welsh speakers. Legitimately, and here, I would like to ask the question, was the ambition actually larger than that? I've called this aspiration by attack. I hope you can make out the green arrows at the bottom of the Lord Rhys' area. He's clearly attacking into marcher lordships, some of which are not very old at all by this time, less than a century, and certainly way less than a century, maybe two generations, and he's beginning to take those on. In the year before his death, in 1196, he even attacks debris in the great lordship of Brecon, directly to his east. The question I would ask, and I think implicit in my asking of the question is my opinion about this, is it possible to identify an ambition to create a Welsh state? Now, in Welsh historiography, this is a vital question, anybody who knows anything about Welsh historiography, will know that long has been addressed the issue as to whether there was a Welsh state before modern notions of a Welsh devolved state were created. In other words, is there an historic lineage to the notion of a Welsh state? That debate usually centres on a generation later, on Chloelyn Vawr, the great prince of north Wales, of Gwynedd. So, inside of what I'm going to present to you is the notion of that question, my answer to the question is yes, obviously. Rhys died in 1197 and was buried at St David's, the justiceship ended probably on Henry II's death. And his sons effectively took Dehaibath apart. But curse of a Welsh prince is to have more than one son, because partable inheritance gives them the right in a sense to rip the entity apart, and that is literally what happened. Welsh power then shifted, the hegemonic power shifted north into the hands of Chloelyn Vawr, whose years of reign in Gwynedd were long, 1199, and hugely successful until 1240. It is an irony that the English took back their possessions, one of which was Cardigan Castle, precisely the place where Rhys performed the first event of Welsh identity, the nationalised Edward. That was taken back, returned to the hands of the black. You will note that my base maps here are all those, if you know the work, of William Rhys. He was doing this in just after the Second World War, and the enemy is always in black. And it goes back to the daily mail maps of the Nazi invasion of northern France. You always had to examine your source. I'm not going to go there either. At the height of his powers, Threesap Greffeth preeminently chose the Cistercian Order for his benefactions. In some sense, this is about, and Welsh historians would write this, the asceticism of the Order, this bright, brilliant, vibrant new order, which is overturning the corruptions of the Benedictines and the Cluniacs in particular, and asceticism, the return to the rule of Benedict, is the order of the day. This tunes in, in a sense, with this national identity, this chapel culture that I mentioned before of a kind of asceticism. But also politically, was this to win support from and gain access to the international influence of the church as a counterpoise to the aggressive English state?  More complexly, and again, I don't think of time really to go into this, certainly with Janet Burton here in the audience, is the normative story of Cistercian expansion, an oversimplification of the dynamic alliance between religious zeal and secular ambition at the local level. This is a very typical map, that was taken from the guidebook to Stratofloriad, to show, again, almost lines of invasions of the Cistercians and how it is they managed to colonise and to populate the British Isles. But the uncertainties of all of this, I think, are almost emblematised, symbolised by the fact that we were very comfortable to begin with in this story that the origin came from Whitland via Clairvaux, until very recently a history of the Abbey of Vosam Cistercian House just simply proclaimed they founded Stratofloriad, so actually now I'm not so sure as I used to be exactly how it came to be founded. So is this normative story of Cistercian expansion an oversimplification of the dynamic alliance at the local level between religious zeal and secular ambition, was there accommodation, and of course in the case of Stratofloriad I'm going to argue that, and indeed there's now a great deal of very fine international scholarship that recognises this and I noted that Terrell Ginder is going to be hopefully become a fellow of this society and her work I think is very important in all of that. More widely the princes of native Wales chose the Cistercians of one lineage of Whitland. All the Cistercian houses, the preeminent house of the Welsh princes, the preeminent order of the Welsh princes came from Whitland, and the Anglo-Norman foundations of Cistercians, I didn't put them in black, I put them in brown, are drawn from other lineages. Now this is quite interesting in a sense, it suggests a strength of alliance, a strength of ideological intention among the Welsh princes. Another point I would like to make, particularly in relationship to Stratofloriad, is that earlier in the 12th century, the end of the 11th century, beginning of the 12th century, the diocesan church in Wales was completely reformed. Now this was a big act, it was an important act because really this was about suppressing the so-called Celtic church before her, the apostate church in the eyes of Catholic Rome, and the monastic practices of Wales up to this point were very much frowned upon. This was dealt with and the four dioceses were created, that you see there playing red on this map, and two of the old Bishop houses, the great Bishop houses of Wales, were suppressed, the great Bishop house of Llanbadarn, St Padarn, and of Llandeolos and Tainop. And both of these suppressed houses, the other ones, the five great Bishop houses, the other three were actually absorbed and became diocesan centres. It looks very particular that Dehaibath's relationship, the diocesan church, is expunged by this process. Those are in grey to suppress, they became eventually parochial, collegiate first and then parochial. So again a question, was the creation of Stardaflory actually an attempt to fill the void of having no diocesan centre increases areas of power and to replace or recall the older pre-Norman church by recruiting the Cistercians? In other words, they couldn't go back, as it says there, neither St Ilo's church nor St Padarn's church could be revived in situ since the Norman diocesan church had been produced into parochial. They couldn't go back on that decision, they couldn't re-found those two Bishop houses. Effectively the question then again comes back to was priests creating a state church for an aspirant state of Dehaibath or even Wales? One indication of this intention may be the reputation that Stardaflory had gained very quickly probably transferred from St Padarn for the production of Welsh texts in the Welsh language, histories, myths, poetry and religious texts and legal codes. As many of you here know, it's very difficult to say precisely where a manuscript came from. But if you look at the great scholars of the Welsh manuscript, time and time and time again, Stardaflory is seen as the production not just of manuscripts which are extant, most of which are in the National Library of Wales, but actually the contents as well, the drawing together of the hyst of the material which form the Mabedogial, for example, is reputed to of the Stardaflory. From priests' point of view in a sense in terms of needing a state church, this is a body of skilled intellectuals and administrators who can operate in the medium of Welsh culture, not just in language itself. The project seems to be to encode, to inscript and to preserve a Welsh culture in the Welsh language and the manuscripts we have are a great triumph in relationship to that. And always associated with Stardaflory. Was there also external recognition of this ambition? In 1212 King John ordered the Abbey which harbors our enemies to be destroyed. That's really quite an exceptional thing to do. In 1238, just before his death to Elin Vabre, all the princes of Wales to Stardaflory to swear allegiance to his son Daveth, portrayed in the manuscript there in his deathbed. As his sole heir, transfer of power from one person to another, intact, territorially as well as legally, is the essential prerequisite of a feudal state. He brought them all to Stardafloryda. The question I had is why didn't he go to his diocesan centre of Bangor? Why did he not go to one of his own Cistercian Abbeys in the North? My feeling is that this place has already recruited a meaning, is meaningful in terms of that kind of Welsh identity that Troy Elin Vabre is explicitly using. You can see, there should be a swastika at the top of that black line for the 1282-83 campaign. You can see what I mean. I once gave a lecture, sorry, I'm not supposed to digress, but I once gave a lecture and the person at Y Llywodraith thought that this was going to be the new railway line that united the whole of Wales. Because as many of you know, if you want to hold a meeting of all the Welsh archaeologists, you go to Srosbury of all places. Anyway, you can see, and it is very explicit. You read the chronicles and that's what they do. In 1284, the church was burned. The annals say, accidentally, I think it's a bit like Steve Beaker slipping on a block of soap. I don't think there was anything deliberate about it at all. I'm sorry, one other and important aspect of this. In 1402, 1407, on three separate occasions, there's an article just about to come out on this in Welsh history review, started when I was occupied by an English force pursuing Oainglindur, the last proclaimed, self-proclaimed Welsh prince. It was effectively desecrated and destroyed. The English stabled their horses in the church and the building was burnt to the ground after the horses were taken out, if any of you are worried about that. So this is the historical context for the start of Florida project. We've conducted phase one, 2004 to 2015, largely in terms of the research by the MI university. We are now pausing to write up and produce the volume on this. It has two principal elements. Research, and I had two research questions. How extensive was the abbey and its historic landscapes, and how well does our archaeology survive? Well, the answer to those two questions is big, very, very big. And very well, thank you very much, as you can see from the excavation photograph there of the great gatehouse of the abbey. We're also conducting however, as some of you know, heritage regeneration on the site. We want to purchase, conserve, and sustainably develop the Monacova group of listed buildings. The house itself there, I'm not going to talk about it this evening, is a great two-star listed building and is a gentry house of the Steadman family, and it was built out of the refectory, the fabric there, the refectory of the abbey from the late 12th century in Scotland. We want to do all of this with the knowledge and understanding of these ancient landscapes. The context indeed for the project is the extensive landscape and the estate granted to Stardaf, Florida, by Thrice and his sons in the last two decades of the 12th century. And this map, again, plain and green, gives you some sense of the lands which were granted by the house of the Hebarth. It is huge, if anybody knows some of these places on the map, from Aberystwyth to Rhaedda, you have lands of Stardaf, Florida. It is vast. To give you some sense of its contemporary meaning, I have put into orange there also the sister house, also founded from Whitland, of Abbey Cwm here and the grant of its lands. Compare the two footprints of the two. Abbey Cwm here is the more normal grant. Now, something is clearly going on here. Why is such an enormous and massive grant? This is not, as you will see in the moment, good agricultural land. A lot of it is mounted in Upland, but it is still vast and extensive with an enormous footprint right over the centre of Wales. Stardaf, Florida is the upper end of the Tavey Valley. It's a topography of Upland and Glaciated Valley floors, particularly the Tavey Valley, a broad, Glaciated Valley, which widens out, particularly as you travel south, from course, Calwn, in there. The Upland stretches up, and I'm going to use old money here, to 1,700 feet. The bottom of the valleys are around about 600 feet. The greatest of the mountain area lies to the east, the Cambrian Mountains, which is the central spine of the mid and south Wales. Right in the heart of it lies Coss Calwn, of that in a moment, and other Goss areas. Goss is Heathland, Warland, in this particular case, Wechland Wars in particular. At the heart of the landscape is Coss Calwn, looking northwards towards the Meneth Bach. It's a National Lakes Reserve, it's a Ramsar site. It's internationally known and renowned. The Stradafore owned, I think, all of it. Now, one of the projects that has greatly influenced me, in this is the Barlings project in Lincolnshire, and the work done by Paul Everson and David Stocker, Paul is here this evening. Thank you very much for coming, Paul. And I'm very much influenced by what it is they say, and its relationship with the sacred landscapes of Bog. Now, I'm not going to say anything about the sacred landscape with a bog here, but I do think it exists. It's just that I haven't, in a sense, much empirical evidence to back that statement up. Prior to Stradafore owning it, it seems to have been divided up into small patches by a whole vast range of communities. Goss Calwn, also famously, has been a source of palaeontological study since the 1940s, and arguably, it was invented in these huge deep deposits of peat at Goss Calwn. It's complex. Recently, this upper parts were looked at by Elizabeth Morris, and again, this is complicated. But it does give a sequence, and I will just very quickly summarise that. In the late Iron Age, early Roman period, up to about the end of the first century AD, we are in an arable optimum. There's a lot of arable around. We have a lot of farmsteads and so on. Then there's a beginning of a massive agrarian decline, beginning in the second to fifth centuries. You have huge regeneration. You have loss of arable. You have indeed loss of good pasture land, as well, in the indicators. And that agrarian decline really continues until the late 8th, 39th century. And then in the 9th century, as you get the rise of the world's federal kings, you begin the processes of recovery, not very well developed by the time we get to the 12th century and the moment we want to look at in particular. One of the things that was noted right from the beginning of work on the Strata Florida sequence, particularly by Judith Termo, who famously wrote the great article on anthropogenic inflict factors on landscape, is the fact that the footprint, the arrival of Strata Florida, is easily detectable. Massive rise in arable production, massive rise in proof pasture, and a pushing back of the scrublin that had regenerated. Now, this map is even worse in terms of the complexity of it. In a way, I just want to show you what we're doing is an immense study of the landscapes of Strata Florida. And we can't just look at physical topography, we've got to look at cultural topography. Now, the colours are slightly merged in this, and I apologise for that. But the four cultural elements are the mountain tops, the open pastures, the mannus. Mannus in Welsh is a cultural word, not necessarily a physical geography word. Slopes and mountain valleys, the fris, this is land which could be extended and occupied. And then a heartland, Tietcarth land, the heartlands on the good land of the valley 4. And the point about this, I'll try and use the mouse to show you, it's actually between the mountain and the bog, it's a very narrow ring of land in little niches tucked into the mountain, as well as on some ridges, glacial meringue largely, out into the bog at Samp. This is an example of one of those niches. It's Maes Trefflin, it's named in a charter of 1184, and it's a niche between Pentlannach and Cosh Haram, mentioned in the bowels, and you actually still detect them on the maps. You might notice that I am using the first edition six inch map as a base here. One of the real surprises I had when I went into Wales, you used the 19th century mapping, you're actually, if you're decoded a bit, you're actually using a medieval map, it's really quite extraordinary in these areas. As you can see, Maes Trefflin is this little piece of land that sticks its tongue out into Cosh Haram, it has a glacial lake next to it, hence the name of the place, Maes Trefflin means the field of the lake, and Trefflin is a little niche up a little side valley where a glacial is hollowed out a little bit of an area that is good arable land. In 1165, three subgraphs confirmed the small initial grant of Stephen as we've seen of certain places in his lordship of Pentlannach. We can identify seven of the ten in relationship to this map, and they are on the nichets, on this good land, it's only granting the good land. Whether or not at this time it's the only land in the sense that was available to be granted, I don't know yet, but it's an interesting possibility. The first site of Stradd-Florida was founded at a site which is quite useful and convenient. Welsh Place names are brilliant at telling you what's going on in the landscape, Hymrachlog, between the old monastery. It's quite straightforward. Old monastery, Hymrachlog. Now, I use this word re-foundation. Again, it probably needs a lot of justification, which we will do in print, and I think there's a new ambition. I think at the height of his powers at around 1184, Rhys makes this second massive grant and a decision was taken to move the site of the abbey, and that decision is quite important at what I want to say as I close this lecture. All the things in red are lands in the charters which are mentioned as being on, and this is quite important, in places nominallochorum excelentiorum, the names of the places the more excellent. Now, it could be of the more excellent people, but it's usually translated the more excellent places, and I think that describes the niche lands. I think specifically in the charter, that's what it is they're saying. Stradd-Florida doesn't, I think, create granges. I think that comes much later. Stradd-Florida creates a domain of specialist farms, very much on the Carolingian model, a pig farm, a orchard, a specialist woodland, and so on, to sustain the needs of the abbey, effectively a manor. The granges, which we have in 16th century documents, appear to be a later creation. We can discuss that. The new Stradd-Florida is placed in a small east-west valley. It's in the bottom centre of the photograph. There, this is looking eastwards, looking westwards, and you can see in the haze in the distance, the Irish sea, that gives you a very strong connection. This site tilts towards Ireland, and there's at least one person in the audience who would want me to lecture entirely on this, but it's something I can answer questions on later. It has the bog to the west, and I think that's significant. And the mountains to the east. If I was an all-out phenomenologist of the crystalline kind, which I am not, although I am theoretically interested, okay, let me put it that way, I would say it's coming from the dark black bog westwards up to the mountain. This is the journey of life, pilgrim's journey. I'm not going to give you a long account of what we've discovered in the archaeology. These things are often tedious, and this is the stuff that deserves and will be in print. One of the extraordinary things to go now alongside of the fact that there is this huge grant of land is that the abbey has a precinct area, 126 acres. In this august company, I hesitate to say that you can put the plan of ffountains inside of Strata Florida. And it has, unlike most assertion abys, instead of compact building complexes, it has large interior spaces. John Lelland, I'll make a point of this as well, called it the Great Court of Four of the Abbey, one of three or four distinctive things he noted about Strata Florida. And there are extensive surviving landscape features of specialist production all around this abbey site. It's a fabulously rich archaeological site. I want to touch then on sacred landscape, which is going to be the main theme of this last 10 minutes, is the start with where you would start, where indeed an architectural historian would start, where many of the people who talk about the sacred spaces are extensive literature on the sacred spaces, all of which I think are limited to the core buildings, the core monastic buildings. At Strata Florida, this extraordinary west door, which I suppose in architectural terms belongs in a kind of Romanesque Gothic transitional world, the key thing about it really is that it has labels around the outside of it, which are referential to Celtic art. This is the art that you will find on the carved stones and monuments of an earlier period. And they're quite deliberate. Inside the church we have hundreds and hundreds of pieces of the surviving architectural sculpture of Strata Florida and it's Gothic. It's all early Gothic. It's only at the door, the moment of entry, that the point is this statement, those who have eyes to see will know what it is they are passing through. And at the other end, at the end of the high altar, in the burial ground, Celtic art appears again. So there's this artistic sandwich of Celtic art providing the bread and the Gothic providing the marmite in the middle. You might like marmite. I don't. A feature, and I really want to focus on this now, this is the nub of the story. A feature previously disregarded and it is still unmentioned in the guidebook, sits right at the crossing of the church. It consists of a hole in the ground, stone lined with steps going down one side from the west and down the other side from the east. At the centre of the, where the two steps meet, there's a system into which water can flow and flow out. And for me, this is very, very important. It's non-appearance of the guidebook. I think it's absolutely extraordinary. Whenever I took students there or took visitors around in the long years before I undertook the Strata Florida project, I was always asked what this was. I had no answer whatsoever. Everybody assumed it was baptism. And I kind of shook my head and said, do baptism in the sanctuary of a Cistercian abbey, if it's going to be anyway, it's going to be down far west end. Is it a mandatum? Is it about the ceremony of the washing of the feet? I've asked all over Europe whether anyone has ever seen a mandatum that looks like this and the answer is no. When it was first excavated, I believe, and I was told this by Academy Inspector many years ago, no names, no backdrop, it was an inspection cover for the drainage system at Strata Florida. Not least because there's a kind of, you can see there's ledge around the outside which is clearly to let a trap door, a wooden trap door onto the top so that the thing can be opened. Another thing about it is, and it's not terribly clear in my photographs there, but I've got an air photograph that will show it in a moment. It's on a different alignment from the church. The church, we now know, is aligned westwards on sunset in the week of St David's Day. This site is aligned due east-west and it has enclosing walls. These are usually said to be late. Look at the sequence on there, they're said to be late. Actually, there's no reason why they should be thought of as late. It's not up to the main periods of the town. I think they're primary. There's some other curiosities as well. That odd alignment, there is a blue north-south line running through the chapter house. I should say north-south is left to right on this picture, not up. That blue line there, which is again said to be secondary to the chapter house, is on the same alignment as this feature. All right. I've given it away by my caption, I realise. It's a holy well, I think. It has all the architecture of a holy well. Two sets of steps, a system of basin, water flowing in and out of it, and it's before the high order of the abbey within an enclosed space. I thought what the Dickens is this. Stephen Williams, when he excavated the site in the 19th century, which really cleared the site. A footprint run by Caddo is pretty much the Stephen Williams excavation. Nothing there. Rawley-Rabford did the clearance excavations. Any of you are familiar, please, with Rawley-Rabford's work, would you please tell me? I know there's some of his notes in Exeter, but I don't know whether they're Antiquaries. I haven't actually had time to look yet. There is no report of these excavations whatsoever. It wasn't unusual in those days, of course. I'm not trying to blame him for anything. It's what you did. The interesting thing from my point of view is that his first guidebook in 1936, it's not there. In 1946, it's there. It's uncommented on. It's unmentioned. It's not in the text. It's not in the text of the guidebook still. Which is really quite extraordinary. And I think he just couldn't explain it. I think it's as simple as that. And until very, very recently, and this came after I'd agreed to give the lecture at the Antiquaries, and a fortune sometimes smiles on you, an excavation was drawn to my attention, done several years ago now, at an abbey, a Benedictine abbey in Finisterre in Brittany, Londonic. And this revealed, under the Benedictine abbey, as modelled here, on the two left-hand side, one is a blow-up of the other, a Holywell with a system before the high order, and interestingly and importantly from our point of view, the Shrine of the Saint, San Gwenoly, behind, just behind, that Holywell. The young excavators of the site at Finisterre said this, French architectural historians poo-pooed this and said, this cannot be the case, there's no parallel for it. They were so delighted when we got in contact and said, we got one. So there are two sets of people at least to understand it and saying, this is very interesting. The final interesting thing about Londonic is that the Benedictine abbey, which is completely rebuilt, is rebuilt around the Shrine and around the Holywell inside of the church. There is one legendary artefact that is associated with Stratifloria and its traditions of water, holy water and healing, because I believe that Holywell is about healing. The Nantios cup, the famous Nantios cup. I'm simply going to ask now, is it too much to think that this legendary cup, from which if you drank the water you would get instant healing, a belief that still exists, was it once used to take water from the Holywell Shrine at the heart of the abbey? It is reputedly, I'd never handled it, it is reputedly a maser cup, a standard maser cup that you would find in the refectory of an abbey such as Stratifloria. Let's look at the well in a wider setting. There it is, at the crossing of the church and the water management system that feeds into it is clearly plumbed into the water system of the abbey comes out of a little valley to the south called Dauffrin Tower. The river, the avon glass fruit, is in an artificial channel as you might expect this assertion to do to stop the valley flooding, a simple functional point. But they do an arrangement of the waters and it includes another Holywell. This is it, this is a blow up of Dauffrin Tower, this is the water management system as we have it and there is a Holywell, it was created by cutting back a vertical face of rock and the system is inserted into that vertical face of rock you see one of my former students looking at it there and there are two sets of steps coming down to the Holywell one to the system itself and one to the base where you have the pond up for the Holywell. The water of the Holywell there is fed into the water system of the abbey and therefore the water of the abbey is sanctified if you believe in such things by the waters of the Holywell. Also there is the interesting thing about the cemetery if you look and this really occurred to me very recently if you look at the church you could say that the cemetery was post dissolution and it accumulated and grew around the abbey itself, the dissolved abbey itself. Well I don't think that's the case, I think it's the other way around. I think the church was being dropped over the top of the cemetery and in order to capture the Holywell which would have been on one side on the south side of that cemetery. This is it you can see the plan we don't know the full extent of that cemetery but we do know that it has at least one tenth century stone that has come from it to make sure that it's 10th century as far as we can possibly establish she says it's 10th century as far as I'm concerned but the other thing also go back to John Lellond he says the cemetery where in the country about Duff Berry is very large it's a huge burial ground there's an enormous sentiment to be buried at Stradd of Florida there are a lot of the London Welsh who are returned as corpses to be buried at Stradd of Florida itself this notion of return and journey we've got complex geophysics I'm not going to try and unpack that yet you can see the church complex in the middle of it we need much more geophysics I'm sure we'll make an application to the Antichrist due course for some assistance in relationship to that no pressure I don't want a decision now today but it is hugely complex it's revealed where a lot of the stone buildings are and so on but one of the things it has done is identify the clear fact now that there is a huge amount of pre-susturtian activity on the site some of which is related to a sequence of ditches which we've located on the western side and the focus of that high density of activity is clearly onanarch which starts to identify that the cemetery, this pre-susturtian cemetery with its early stone in it and the Holywell lie at the centre of what might be a pre-susturtian monastery got a long way to go yet this is only the end of phase one remember calls to my mind the conceptual math of an early monastery from the book of Mulling which you as scholars I'm sure will know why are the things I'm really interested in the book of Mulling depiction is those crosses they fascinated scholars for many many decades many of them lie outside the rings of the monastic complex itself excavation of the Great Westgate which is the biggest excavation that we've done shows that we've got two of these ditches these early ditches stratigraphically unequivocled their pre-susturtian they lie under the buildings however they were lay open and visible when the Susturtian gatehouse was laid out at the end of the 12th century because they had to build into the ditch to shore up the corners to make sure that they were properly and fully supported and there's one on this corner and there's one on the opposing and opposite corner and from the third corner here and I saw this on just a sunlit day so I just threw my watch at it as a scale that watch threw my watch at it as a scale there are these low author stats which are on the same alignment as those pre-susturtian ditches and have been incorporated into the plan of the Great Gate there is a parallel for this out in the landscape these are something that's called locally the monks graves and I went to the rock mission to get the record and there's no record of this in the rock mission at all it's never been drawn to their attention which I found most curious so local people took me to this it's a line of stones low stones marked with crosses equal on crosses and they point to a certain location in the landscape another holy well and this is the glass fruit well which appears to lie at the centre of all this basin steps it even has veneration objects going back a couple of hundred years around it so you can see it was enclosed in forestry it is now revealed and you're looking up to the source of the avant glass fruit in the on the ridge that's just the watershed of the Cambrian mountains that location I think is itself utterly remarkable and what you have these are the headwaters there in blue of the avant glass fruit the monuments that you're seeing depicted in the top left hand corner there are about 24 of them they are a consist of cairns quite large cairns a kystfain in many of them and one standing stone and one really rather curious structure in amongst all of this there are many more things there one of the things I really found interesting is that because of the nature of survival there are trackways and pathways between these monuments some of which lead to the monuments themselves and at least two lead to one of the source waters of the avant glass fruit the ridge this is where place names became useful above it is called esgai atlindi which means the ridge of the black lake there is a bog in its flush next to these monuments and these monuments at the bottom left hand corner you can't really make that out unless you know the site that's the bog in the centre there is hunkered down in a hollow all the other monuments as depicted on this of similar date and similar class are all on the ridge tops this site is unique regionally but it's association with water that far back I'm heartened by the work of people like Geoffrey Grainwright and Tim Tim Davill on the Prosellys which are identifying lots of these kind of sites which look at spring waters and sources so this is the glass fruit valley this complex of prehistoric monuments at the bottom it has four holy wells along its line there may be more we don't know yet at least one of which is picked out and identified by Christian iconography pointed at by Christian iconography and one of which at the lower end is captured and used and embraced by the abbey church itself I think in a sense a line that started in Florida that draws that drew in the oral tradition this is the other glass fruit looking up from the atty in the bottom I think is what draws people there lots of conclusions about this the principal one that I want to lay before you this evening it has come to the question inside of it because phase two I think has got to be directed at understanding this even further is that I think that the Lord Rhys and the Cisterns knew about the sacredness of this site they wished to recruit it they wished in the sense to embrace its Celtic identity and descent and they went about it and designed conscious way in a way they kind of lurked for 20 years in Hindalachlog before they took the decision then to move to this location it is careful all sorts of things I can't tell you about but I can't this evening all sorts of careful precisions about the way the abbey has placed into this pre existing landscape and I think it's deliberate I think it's about the Lord Rhys trying to make Starter Florida in a sense meld in and be part of the long tradition the long tradition of Wales to enhance his power as a Welsh prince but to use the Cisterns as the world order the right order of Christendom in a sense to show that he was a true Prince of Western Europe so Don's Hirraith I feel has ancient roots embedded in a sacred landscape in a place where the process of enshrining the written Welsh language at the core of a national identity with the conscious of intention of creating an independent Welsh state he could not then have known what you and I have just heard but I hope I have added some substance to his emotions on the threshold of death thank you very much


At the same time that Travis Kelsey is enjoying his budding romance with pop star Taylor Swift, he's also enjoying his growing real estate portfolio. The NFL star, also known as T-Swift's current love interest, recently purchased a $6 million home in Kansas City, Missouri, which is apparently a major upgrade from his other residents. Kelsey bought the fancy new digs for better privacy while dating Taylor because those they are out of control. As public fascination with the new couple continues to grow, it's no surprise that the athlete is serious about protecting their relationship. The new paparazzi-proof mansion is set inside a gated community, a nearly 3.5 acres of land at the end of a quiet cul-de-sac, and inside spans 17,000 square feet. Kelsey's latest estate is far more secluded than his other home in Kansas City, a 4,200 square foot home in the city's Briarcliff West neighborhood that he purchased for $995,000 in 2019. Chief's tight end Travis Kelsey recently scored a Kansas City mansion for $6 million, which is a significant upgrade from his former pad. Kelsey has been linked to superstar Taylor Swift since September, and the couple has been going quite public, with Swift showing up to multiple Chief's games this year, as well as some other couple outings. At first, there were rumors that it was Swift looking to purchase a home in Kansas City, but now we know it was Travis. Taylor reportedly just went with him to view it. The decision to invest in a new estate came after Swifties allegedly began flocking to his former home, and Travis was becoming uneasy with how accessible this property was to fans and paparazzi. This new mansion, being in a secure and gated community, is a way to protect Travis and Taylor's privacy. According to the New York Post, Kelsey was also a little self-conscious with his pretty modest pad and wanted something a bit more grand to impress his new love interest. I mean, with Taylor's insane real estate portfolio, who could blame him? Well, Travis's new crib is located in the upscale community of Leigh Wood, and as mentioned, his suburb is completely gated. The grandest estate sits on nearly 3.5 acres at the end of a quiet cul-de-sac, and it's way more secluded than his other home in Kansas City, which was set in the Briar Cliff West neighborhood. The athlete's new, fanciest estate measures nearly 17,000 square feet, and includes six bedrooms and six bathrooms. According to the listing, the mansion was originally built in 1998, and underwent a massive renovation thanks to Wolfgang Trost Architect and builder Harry Roth. The gated entrance opens to a dramatic circular driveway, while inside, there's an equally dramatic foyer with soaring ceilings. The mansion is any entertainer's dream, and boasting an impressive chef's kitchen, formal dining room, media lounge, wine cellar, and full bar. There's also a ton of living areas for Travis to unwind after game day, or for him and Taylor to cozy up in. You'll find a handful of sporty amenities on the property, such as a lighted tennis court, pickleball court, mini golf course, and a practice screen, plus, of course, a swimming pool. There's also a garage where the Ohio native will presumably store his 1970 Chevelle 408 Stoker convertible, the now famous getaway car. Outside, the expansive backyard is anchored by the Beverly Hills style pool area, with plenty of space for lounge chairs, umbrellas, and more. Well, there's also a waterfall and a hot tub to boot. Swift has traveled to Kansas City twice to watch her new bow play, and the coming and goings of the couples have attracted a lot of attention. And nosy fans hoping to catch a glimpse of the couple have reportedly started swinging by Kelsey's warmer home, which is visible from the street. Kelsey has added a few properties to his portfolio in the years since getting signed to the Chiefs. The two-time Super Bowl champs scooped up his former Kansas City house after his 2019 Super Bowl win, located in the Briar Cliff West neighborhood. At the time, Kelsey paid under a million dollars for the 10,000-square-foot crib, which features five bedrooms, two baths, a fitness room, movie theater, and a swimming pool. Travis' stunning customized estate is situated in the utterly luxurious Briar Cliff West community, and it cost him $995,000. Originally constructed in 1984, Travis' home underwent a massive renovation back in 2007, when the entire main floor and upper level were redone with additional features like travertine tiles, new lighting, updated appliances, and granite counters. In addition to owning a home with an eat-in kitchen, Travis' 10,000-square-foot residence also boasts a charming formal dining space located directly in the center of the house. Elsewhere, there are five full bathrooms as well as two half-bass and seven-bedroom. The most noteworthy of all is, of course, the primary suite, which, in addition to a sitting area, also features a private balcony from which to enjoy the Kansas City scenery. Other exclusive amenities are said to include a wet bar, kitchenette on the second level, a recreation room, gym, and a wine storage space with built-in bar. Of course, if you'd rather spend your time outside, there's options for that too. Not only does Travis' deck sport breathtaking views of the surrounding treetops, it also makes for the perfect alfresco dining area. There's even a large swimming pool out back accompanied by a gazebo and all of those trees while they ensure Travis has as much privacy as he could want, but clearly not enough to protect him from those swifties. As gorgeous as this home is, it's not the only place Travis owns in the area, so we're gonna have to take a look at his second apartment, downtown. According to the New York Post, Travis Kelsey will sometimes choose to shack up in a luxury condo in downtown Kansas City, rather than head back to the suburbs. Now, he's owned apartments in the city before, but this is the most recent one here. Built in 2015 and located at one light luxury in the Power and Light District, this building features 25 stories of living space. Situated in the heart of Kansas City, the major selling point about this address is its location. It's prime for visiting local restaurants, shops, concerts, and clubs. In fact, the building even provides direct access to the local grocery store. Photos of Travis's actual apartment interior aren't widely available, but the condo has provided model images that just show you how nice it is. For instance, the main living suites provide floor-to-ceiling windows along the entire outside wall to give amazing views of the downtown skyline. Other features include cement ceilings, hardwood floors, and white walls, which provide the perfect canvas to allow a renter to add their own personal touch. As for the kitchen, well it might be tiny, but it does provide all the necessary space and tools for a bachelor like Travis used to be to get by. So I don't know if it'll suffice now that he's a taken man, but it does have a small kitchen island where he can enjoy the occasional meal, and elsewhere you'll find a dining area surrounded by warm wood columns and a series of wine racks built into the walls. If that's not decadent enough for you, Travis's unit also includes access to a fireside lounge that functions as a home theater, and he can hide upstairs to their rooftop to partake in the panoramic views of the city or to a dip in the amazing pool. After looking at Travis Kelsey's new love nest, or where we assume he'll be spending plenty of time with Taylor Swift, what did you think? Do you agree that his new Kansas City mansion is a huge upgrade? But before we go, answer this question for me. Would you be willing to date someone with a crazy fan base and even go so far as to buy a new house to avoid those crazy fans? Why or why not? Let me know in the comments down below and don't forget to hit subscribe and turn on your notifications so you never miss a video. Follow me on Instagram to chat and I'll see you all in another one. Bye!