Abbeycwmhir

Abbeycwmhir or Abbey Cwmhir (Welsh: Abaty cwm hir, “Abbey in the Long Valley”) is a village in the beautiful and secluded valley of the Clywedog brook within the sparsely populated county of Powys.

The Abbey
The village is named after the Cistercian Abbey (Cwmhir Abbey) built here in 1143. It was a daughter house of Whitland Abbey, and constructed at the behest of 3 sons of Madog, the then Prince of southern Powys. The first community at Dyvanner (Welsh: Ty faenor, “Manor House”) failed because of the intervention of Hugh de Mortimer, Earl of Hereford but in 1176 the Rhys ap Gruffydd of Deheubarth reestablished the Abbey on land given by Cadwallon ap Madog. At the Dissolution of the Monasteries in March 1537 only 3 monks lived in the abbey.

The abbey was slighted in 1644 during the English Civil War although some ruins still remain.

There is a memorial stone to Llewellyn the Last, the last native Prince of Wales, whose body is buried here.

Places of Note
The Church.The village church of St Mary was rebuilt in the neo-Byzantine style by Mary Beatrice Philips in 1866. She was a grand daughter of Francis Philips who purchased the Abbeycwmhir estate in 1837 with money from the cotton-trade. It replaced a church built in 1680. Soon after the Victorian church was built, the Rev. Francis Kilvert visited.

The Public House. The Happy Union Inn is a grade II listed building. The age of the building is something of a mystery together with its name and unusual pub sign. The present owner is the 3rd generation of his family to run the pub.

The Hall. An Elizabethan-style house built in 1833 by Thomas Wilson the then owner of the Abbeycwmhir estate. It replaced a smaller tudor-style house. It is open to the public.

Pubs/Bars in Abbeycwmhir:

 

Abbey Cwm Hîr - From 'A Topographical Dictionary of Wales' (1849)

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