Alltygawrddu

Alltygawrddu, Glamorgan

OS Grid Ref.: ST05618086
Lat/Lng: 51.518745508,-3.3617766066

Remains of medieval houses that were known as St Cawrdaf's Monastery from the nineteenth century.

These ruins were thought to have been a medieval chapel, and were recorded by Leland in the sixteenth century and by Edward Lhuyd in around 1700. The association with the saint may have been arisen from the fabrications of Iolo Morganwg, and were sufficient for the site to have been described by Samuel Lewis in 1833 as 'an ancient religious house, said to have been a monastery dedicated to St.Cawrdav'. Wade-Evans lists it as a lost chapel, Gelli Gawrdav. The Iolo Manuscripts list a further place-name, Gallt Cawrdaf, in Gwent, which Baring-Gould and Fisher assume is a reference to this site.

However, none of the various spellings attested before the end of the eighteenth century are demonstrably associated with Cawrdaf, which include, for example, Galthe Caurde (c.1538), Alltekarthey (1541), Alltgawrddy (c.1612). More recent forms have incorporated cewri (giants).

Saints linked to this site

More information

National Monuments Record

S. Baring-Gould & John Fisher, The Lives of the British Saints (London: Honourable Society of Cymmrodorion, 1908), 95–6    View online

Richard Morgan, Place-Names of Glamorgan (Cardiff: Welsh Academic Press, 2018), 7, 128

A.W. Wade-Evans, 'Parochiale Wallicanum' in Y Cymmrodor (1910), 67

Sources

Samuel Evans, A Topographical Dictionary of Wales (London: S. Lewis and Co., 1834), Llantrissent    View online

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