peared before the barbarous hand of man), which have been so fully illustrated in the Mona Antiqua, but also on account of its church, and, what cannot but be termed, the melancholy fate of that building. The present observations having reference to mediæval antiquities only, it will be sufficient to remark that the sites of most of the Celtic remains mentioned by Rowlands are still in the recollection of the older inhabitants (A.D. 1846), but that by far the larger portion of the Druidical stones, if such they were, have disappeared, under the needless pretext of improvement and scarcity of stone for building. Many, however, still exist, and are marked on the ordnance map, but it is now doubted whether the Caer Leb be not a Roman encampment; and it is asserted that a paved road, similar to a Roman road in construction, runs by the north eastern side of that work, and across the adjoining common towards the Menai. Not indeed that it is visible, but that it lies about three feet below the soil, and has been of late exposed in various places. The reader is recommended to visit this interesting district, and to examine the ground, as well as to consult the works of Rowlands and Angharad Llwyd, before the last vestiges of these Celtic monuments finally vanish.

The parish church was one of the largest and most important in the island of Anglesey; interesting from the various styles of its architecture, for the objects it contained, and for the traditions connected with it. But, in an evil hour, the ruthless hand of the destroyer was allowed to be lifted against it by those whose first duty it was to see that it took no harm; and in 1844 the demolition of all but a small portion was effected. The pretexts alleged for its destruction were, that it required so much repair that it would be better to build a new edifice; and next, that the population having shifted about half a mile off, to a spot called Bryn Siencyn, it would be desirable to choose a place for the new church in that part of the parish. The author first saw the church of Llanidan when the roof had been removed, and the walls partly taken down on the southern side; he therefore took the opportunity of immediately measuring and delineating with the greatest care all the portions of the edifice standing. He also examined the new church, which had been then (July, 1844) erected and opened for some time; and he is anxious to place on record the following opinion:

1. The only portions of the walls of the old church that were at all ruinous were the western end and gable. These appeared to have been badly constructed in the first instance, inasmuch as large buttresses of the sixteenth century, at the latest, had been added to it, irregularly, for its support. It was this ruinous portion which was then converting into a small chapel for the performance of the burial service. All the good portions of the building had been ordered to be taken down, and this has been subsequently partially effected. The walls and piers, as they stood in 1844, might have been made to last for several centuries.

2. The new church covers a space of ground, only a little larger than did the old one. It is built in a debased barbarous style, shewing neither architectural science nor taste, and without example or analogy amongst the ecclesiastical edifices of any age, except the present.

3. It was erected at a cost of more than double what it would have taken to put the old church in perfectly good repair, so as to endure for ages to come.

The old church consisted of a northern and southern aisle, from the latter of which projected a southern chapel, and a porch. The external length of the church was seventy-eight feet, the extreme width thirty-eight feet, being seventeen feet six inches for the northern aisle, and twenty feet six inches for the southern. The chapel was twelve feet long and nineteen feet broad externally; the walls were about two feet ten inches thick, thirteen feet high, and twenty-four feet to the points of the eastern gables. The aisles were separated by a series of six four-centered arches on octagonal piers, with bold mouldings of the Perpendicular style, and the western wall was topped by a triple bell-gable. The effect of the western end with the porch, overgrown by an enormous quantity of ivy, was picturesque in the extreme. The oldest portion of this church was the southern chapel, which was of the Early Decorated period, and contained a two-light window of the same design as those in the choir at Newborough, but of very rude workmanship. This chapel had also two threelight Perpendicular windows with square heads and labels, one in the eastern and one in the western wall. The northern aisle had at its eastern end a window of decorated design, and probably of the end of the 14th century. In the northern wall were three windows of the Perpendicular period with square heads and labels, one of four lights and

another of three, all of excellent workmanship. There was also a doorway of early Perpendicular date, with elongated heads as the terminations of its label.

In the southern aisle there was a small circular headed window, filled up from a pointed one, close by the altar; and the eastern window was of a design more remarkable for its singularity than its beauty.

A three-light Perpendicular window occurred in the southern wall between the chapel and the porch; and in the latter both the inner and the outer doorways were also of Perpendicular date. Opposite to this southern doorway, and in the southern aisle, stood the font (see plate No.iii.), a singularly beautiful specimen of the end of the twelfth or the thirteenth century. Under the altar had been found in former days a curious reliquary, resembling a small stone-coffin in form; and, as Giraldus Cambrensis relates, there was once preserved in this church a miraculous stone resembling a man's thigh, the Maen Morddwyd, but which was stolen from thence, according to the learned author of the Mona Antiqua. The walls of the church were ornamented with texts from scripture, written in Latin and old English characters on various parts of the wall, and traces of red paint were in several places visible. Among the ruins lay the socket of one of the gable crosses, and shields with the following armorial bearings.

On a stone were the letters:

B

R: M

1653

between two shields; on the dexter shield a chevron between three bulls' heads, two and one; on the sinister shield a chevron between three ravens. On another stone were the initials R.B., and the date A° Di, 1563, with a shield bearing

the following erroneous blazons, viz.: quarterly, first and fourth, gules, a chevron sable, between three stags' heads, of the second, two and one; second and third, gules, a chevron sable, between three ravens, of the second, two and one. The tinctures had doubtless been altered by some blundering churchwarden of former days. This church was under the invocation of St. Nidan (vid. Rees's Welsh Saints, p. 295), who flourished in the seventh century, and whose festival was kept on the 30th of September. The orienta

tion of the church was E.N.E.

The situation of the edifice was rather curious, it being erected in a nearly circular enclosure, surrounded by "tall ancestral trees," and immediately behind the mansion of Lord Boston, from which it was not twenty yards distant. The church, being thus placed as it were under the shadow of the lord of the domain, might have been considered safe; but at the present moment it no longer exists.

When buildings, dedicated to God's service by the piety of former ages, are allowed to be treated in this manner by the constituted authorities of the land,—and this is anything but a solitary instance in Wales,-the institutions to which they are attached cannot be expected to find greater favour at the hands of the fickle and ignorant multitude.

LLANDDEINIOL FAB. This chapelry contains a small church which, though of the sixteenth century, and perhaps earlier, has been so much altered by successive reparations, that little of its original architectural character has been preserved. It consists of a single aisle, measuring forty feet by twenty feet externally, with two modern windows in the southern wall, and one in the northern; the eastern window is modern, but traces remain of a two-light window of ancient date. The western doorway is circular-headed of the Perpendicular period, and the western wall is capped by a single bell-gable with an ogee covering. The font is circular, perfectly plain, and may be a remnant of the original church. Within the edifice is a monument commemorating a lady of the Ellis family, 1723. Above it is a coat of arms, bearing quarterly, first, a chevron between three fleurs de lys, two and one; second, a chevron between three male heads, banded, two and one; third, a lion rampant; fourth a chevron between three stags' heads.

St. Deiniolen, under whose invocation the church was