The south aisle is, in fact, of two periods : the eastern part, of the fourteenth century, was built first as a separate chapel. The western is of the Perpendicular period.]
Here we discover the ornamented niches and the pointed arch windows. The six arches which divide it from the nave are pointed; the two western arches are quite plain and very sharp; the pillars that support them are round, massive and clumsy (Norman). The four eastern are higher and less pointed, having round capitals ornamented with mouldings ; the pillars sustaining them are more slender (Perpendicular). The windows in this aisle are large and handsome ; they are divided into compartments by stone mullions, but all are dissimilar in their tracery.
“ In the south wall near the middle of the aisle is a niche ornamented with sculpture, supposed to have belonged to some ancient monument of an abbot, but no particulars relative to it are now extant. [It is apparently for an image of a saint, and has been called the * Bishop’s Throne.’ The present carving is largely of 1850.] The table of the recess in the wall is covered with a Stone 7 feet 6 inches long which appears to have had some figure let into it, but the form of the outline cannot be distinguished. The length of the church within the walls is 104 feet 6 inches ; its breadth 67 feet 6 inches.”
The chancel fell in 1592.
“In that part now employed as the chancel is a rude ancient seat generally called the ‘ Bishop’s Chair ’ [probably this is correct, and the Statement above about the niche, from a more modern source, is a mistake]. Its height is about three feet. Beneath the seat is carved the figure of a hunter with game on his shoulder and accompanied by dogs. [This is probably of the fourteenth century, and may represent St. Hubert.] The chair is now placed on part of a tesselated (tile) pavement found about 50 yards [read feet] from the present east window. . . . Nearly ten feet eaSt of it was the foundation of a wall which from its thickness and materials seems to have been the original extent of the building.” The present eaSt window is a very fine Perpendicular one, moSt likely transferred from the original eaSt end.
The laSt restoration of the church was carried out in 1888-
The following note of Leland muSt refer to the destroyed choir : “ Besyde the hie altare on the ryght hand ys a tumbe with the image of a bishop, and over the tumbe a XI bishops painted with their names, and verses, as token of so many bishops buried ther, or that ther had bene so many bishops of Cornwall that had theyr seete ther.”
The priory buildings were on the north side, and what remains of them is incorporated in the house of Port Eliot, of which the dining-
65
A mile west of the town is Maes Garmon,
(The Field of Germanus),
the traditional site of the Alleluia Victory by British forces led by Germanus of Auxerre against the invading Picts and Scots, which occurred shortly after Easter,0. AD43
Mold developed around Mold Castle. The motte and bailey was built by the Norman Robert de Montalt in around 1140. The castle was part of the military invasion of Wales by Anglo-
Anglo-
With the end of the Welsh Wars, the Statute of Rhuddlan brought the introduction of English common law. This led to an increase in commercial and business enterprise in the township that had been laid out around Mold Castle. Trade between the Welsh community and English merchants in Chester and Whitchurch, Shropshire soon began. During the medieval period, the town held two annual fairs and a weekly market which brought in substantial revenues as drovers brought their livestock to the English-
Mold, c.1795
Nevertheless, tensions between the Welsh and the English remained. During the War of the Roses, Reinalt ab Grufydd ab Bleddyn, a Lancastrian captain that defended Harlech Castle for Henry VI against Yorkist forces, was constantly engaged in feuds with Chester. In 1465 a large number of armed men from Chester arrived at the Mold fair looking for trouble. A fight broke out which led to a pitched battle; eventually Reinalt triumphed and captured Robert Bryne, a former Mayor of Chester. The Welsh captain then took Bryne back to his tower house near Mold and hanged him. In retaliation up to 200 men-
By the late 15th century the lordships around Mold had passed to the powerful Stanley family. In 1477 records mention that Thomas Stanley, 1st Earl of Derby had appointed numerous civic officials in Mold (including a mayor), was operating several mills, and had established a courthouse in the town.
However, in the 1530s, the Tudor antiquarian John Leland noted the weekly market had been abandoned. By now Mold had two main streets: Steate Byle (Beili) and Streate Dadlede (Dadleu-
As the government of Elizabeth I had established royal representatives (Justices of the Peace, Sheriffs, and Lords Lieutenant) in every county of Wales. Mold developed into the administrative centre for Flintshire. By the 1760s, the Quarter Sessions were based in the town; the county hall was established in 1833, and the county gaol in 1871.
In 1833, workmen digging a prehistoric mound at Bryn yr Ellyllon (Fairies' or Goblins' Hill) discovered a unique golden cape, which dates from 1900–1600 BC in the Bronze Age. The cape weighs 560 g and was produced from a single gold ingot about the size of a golf ball. Unfortunately it was broken when found and the fragments were shared out among the workmen, with the largest piece going to Mr Langford, tenant of the field in which the mound stood. The find was recorded by the vicar of Mold and came to the notice of the British Museum. In 1836 Langford sold his piece to the Museum and subsequently most of the pieces were recovered, though there is a tradition that the wives of some of the workmen sported new jewellery after the find! Restored, the cape now forms one of the great treasures of the British Museum in London.[4][5]
Mold hosted the National Eisteddfod in 1923, 1991 and 2007. There was an unofficial National Eisteddfod event in 1873.
Mold was linked to Chester by the Mold Railway, with a large British Rail station together with adjacent marshalling yards and engine sheds; however, these closed when Croes Newydd at Wrexham was opened. The station was closed in 1962 in the Beeching Cuts of the early 1960s, though the track survived until the mid-
Abbot Lyfing and Cnut and not very usual cognomen Sabinus.
The stones have somewhat of the appearance of funeral monuments, but are entirely lacking in Christian emblems.
Such as they are, they point to some kind of Roman cultural influence in the district of Tavistock.
The abbey was founded in 961 by Ordgar, an English noble who was probably Ealdorman (not Earl) of Devon and Cornwall under King Eadgar the Peaceful. He is best known as the father of Eadgar's second wife, /Elfthryth—“Elfrida” of evil memory, mother of the "redeless ” king /Ethelred II. and the murderess of her step-
Shortly afterwards the Cornish see of St. Germans was united to Crediton, so that Lyfing exercised ecclesiastical authority over the whole of die two western counties. He took a foremost share in the elevation to the throne of Edward the Confessor.
Another notable abbot was Ealdred, who afterwards became Archbishop of York and crowned William the Norman in Westminster Abbey. No special ill-
ST. GERMANS .Augustinian
was the seat of a bishop in early times. The bishops of the Celtic churches were not like those of the English; their sphere influence was not defined in the same way. In Ireland a bishop often lived in a monastic settlement and was inferior in
in rank to the Abbot. In Cornwall the Bishop of St. Germans was probably the head of a monastery. Whether his jurisdiction extended over the whole of modern Cornwall, or whether there were not other bishops—at Bodmin, for instance—in the quite early days, is not clear. The first bishop who is named is one Conan, in AthelStan’s time (in 936), but he will not have been actually the first. The laSt was Burhwold.
In 1050 the old See of St. Germans was united with Exeter by Edward the Confessor, and Bishop Leofric, who had formerly had Crediton for his See, moved thither. He is said to have placed canons in St. Germans. But it was Bartholomew, Bishop of Exeter in Henry II’s time, who made it a Priory of AuguStinian Canons. So it continued till the Suppression, when its annual value was somewhat under £250.
The church has a certain cathedral flavour about it, in that it has two western towers; one is Norman, with an oCtagonal top of the thirteenth century. The other, the southern, has Norman base and Perpendicular upper Storey. Between them is a fine late Norman door. The nave has two Norman piers on the south side, and a Norman font is in the south tower.
The original north aisle was pulled down in 1803 and replaced by the pew of the Eliots—the house of Port Eliot is immediately beside the church.
The description in the Beauties of "England and Wales (Britton and Bray-
After describing the western arch it says : “ Over the arch is a pediment with a cross at the top resembling an heraldic cross patee within a circle; on each side is a small pointed window, and above these are three small narrow round-
“ The north aisle is divided from the nave by five short thick round columns, each connected with a half-
“ In several windows of the aisle are a few coats of arms on painted glass.
“ The architecture of the south aisle is very dissimilar from that on the
St. Germans in Celtic Times
It is generally accepted that St. Germans takes its name from Saint Germanus, who was Bishop of Auxerre, and who lived from 380 to 448. Germanus was a Gallo-
w hich was probably older than St. Germ ans itself, but although m aintained as a chapel o f ease b y the Priory until the Reform ation not a stone
now remains.
Cornw all does not seem to have been subdued b y the W est Saxons
until jabout 830 in the reign o f Egbert. Before that the Cornish Church managed its own affairs without reference to the Saxon Church established by St. Augustine. This church in Cornwall was essentially monastic and all the principal churches were monasteries, wherein the Bishops were the Abbots or else subordinate to them . Amongst these we may be fairly certain that one was to be found at St. Germans, though it is curious that the old Celtic name of St. Germans (if it ever had one) has not survived.