St Afan's Church, Llanafan Fawr. Photograph © John Ball, Brecon.

Llanavan-Vawr (Llan-Afan-Fawr) - From 'A Topographical Dictionary of Wales' (1849)
LLANAVAN-VAWR (LLAN-AFAN-FAWR), a parish, in the union and hundred of Builth, county of Brecknock, South Wales, 6 miles (N. W. by W.) from Builth; comprising the township of Llŷsdinam, and containing 975 inhabitants, of whom 258 are in the first, 219 in the second, and 246 in the third, division of the parish; the remainder being included in the above-mentioned township. This parish comprises 9337 acres, of which 367 acres are common or waste land. The surface is abruptly broken into precipitous eminences and deep glens, and the soil varies in richness in proportion to the degree of elevation. On the higher lands it is dry and light, having little or no depth: in the lower parts the common lands consist chiefly of turf, and peat composed of decayed vegetables, about four or five inches in depth, resting on a bed of blue or greyish clay; and in the deep glens the soil is in general a stiff clay, which increases in depth when approaching to the banks of streams, and is better adapted for tillage than for pasture. The parish is bounded on the north by a small stream called the Whevri, and the scenery of the neighbourhood is strikingly varied, and in many places highly picturesque.

The living is a vicarage, with the perpetual curacies of Llanavan-Vechan, Llanvihangel-Abergwessin, and Llanvihangel-Bryn-Pabuan annexed, rated in the king's books at £9. 8. 9.; present net income, £273; patron, the Bishop of St. David's. The tithes of the parish, including the township of Llŷsdinam, have been commuted for a rent-charge of £470, of which two-thirds are payable to the Dean and Chapter of St. David's, and one-third to the vicar, who has also a glebe of twenty acres, valued at £20 a year, and a glebe-house, called Persant, pleasantly situated on the bank of the Whevri, about a quarter of a mile below the church. The church, dedicated to St. Avan, consists of a nave of considerable length, with a low massive tower at the western end, containing five bells, which appears from a tablet on the south side of it, to have been built at the expense of the parishioners, in 1765: the body of the edifice was rebuilt at the cost of the parish, in 1814, and is very neat. It is said that several of the vicars are interred beneath the altar-piece, but there are neither monuments nor inscriptions in the church. In the churchyard is to be seen an altar-tomb, with the inscription Hic jacet Sanctus Avanus Episcopus; the stone is of a hard and durable kind, and the letters, which are deeply cut, are in a very perfect state. There is a long-established place of worship for dissenters; and four Sunday schools are supported, three of them by the Independents, and the fourth by the Baptists. The parish is entitled to participate in the Boughrood charity at Brecon for apprenticing poor children under the grant of the Rev. Rice Powell, who bestowed extensive estates for the purpose. Bryniogar, formerly the residence of a branch of the Gwynne family of Garth, was anciently a distinguished mansion. At a small distance from the church is a Maen Hîr, or upright stone, supposed to be Druidical. A poet named Mâby Clochyddyn, "the sexton's son," who flourished in the latter part of the fourteenth century, and was author of a poem in praise of Gwenhwyvar, wife of Hywel ab Tydyr ab Griffith, and who, by some writers, is identified with Macclav ab Llywarch, was born in this parish.