Population 235 Sovereign state United Kingdom Local time Tuesday 7:13 AM | OS grid reference SO055711 Country Wales Postcode district LD1 6** Dialling code 01597 Post town Llandrindod Wells | |
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Weather 1°C, Wind W at 8 km/h, 95% Humidity | ||
Abbeycwmhir or Abbey Cwmhir (Welsh: Abaty Cwm Hir, "Abbey in the Long Valley") is a village in the valley of the Nant Clywedog in Powys, Wales.
Contents
Map of Abbeycwmhir, Llandrindod Wells, UK
The Abbey
The village is named after Cwmhir Abbey, the Cistercian abbey built there in 1143. It was the largest Abbey in Wales but was never completed. Its fourteen bay nave was longer than Canterbury and Salisbury Cathedral naves and twice as long as that at St. Davids. It was a daughter house of Whitland Abbey, and constructed at the behest of three 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 re-established the Abbey on land given by Cadwallon ap Madog. Llewelyn ap Gruffudd is buried near the altar in the nave. The abbey was burned by the forces of Owain Glyndŵr in 1401. At the Dissolution of the Monasteries in March 1537 only three 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 Llywelyn ap Gruffudd, the last native Prince of Wales of direct descent, whose body is buried there.