Tag: Ewenny Priory

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The Mystery of Bomium

I am currently making a series of documentaries about lost settlements. Places that pop up in historical documents and old maps but which don’t exist anymore. In my latest video I try and track down Bomium (or Bomio). It is mentioned in the Antonine Itinerary as being a fort and settlement somewhere on the Via Julia Maritima between Cardiff and Neath. But the milage calculations given are plainly wrong as they say 15 miles from Neath and 27 miles from Caerleon. As if those two places are only 42 miles apart along the old Roman Road. In reality its more like 55. So where was bomium?

If the distance from Neath was correct it would be the village of Stormy Down near Pyle. But there would be a lot more archeology in the area if that was right. Historians have suggested the XV should have said XX so, alternatives such as the Heronstone/Ewenny Priory area south of Bridgend and Ogmore Castle have been put forward.

When John Speed drew his map of Glamorgan in 1610, he marked Bomium on it. In his opinion, it was Boverton near Llantwit Major. And if the distance from Caerleon is correct, then Cowbridge is the most likely candidate. All of these suggested sites have some merit but none are perfect matches for a variety of reasons.

In this, my latest video, I have pulled together all the evidence we have that there ever was a Bomium, along with where it fits into the story of the Roman invasion and occupation of South Wales. After subduing the Silures.

We look at what history and archeology we have that narrow down the search. I also reconstruct the fort and show viewers where I believe the fort is hidden. And that might raise a few eyebrows. I also bring to life what Bomium would have been like in its hey day, and why it seems to have disappeared. We also challenge some of the accepted wisdom of what happened after the Romans left in general. After all, what have the Romans ever done for us?

I wrote a summary of the story in my first book Legends and Folklore of Bridgend and the Vale but have since found out a lot more detail and information.

It is available to watch in full on my YouTube channel. Just click on the link below to watch in full.

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Owain Glyndwr and the siege of Coity Castle

It is May 1404. Pretty much the whole of Wales is now involved in the Owain Glyndwr revolt as he fights his war of independence. Cardiff is in flames, and just north of Bridgend in Glamorgan, Coity Castle, the home of Sir Lawrence Berkerolles is under siege. A siege which lasts for nearly 2 years – the longest of the entire conflict.

But what do we know of this battle? Why was Coity so important it warranted a two year siege? Who was fighting on behalf of the King of England at Coity and who was fighting for Glyndwr? What was the role of Ogmore Castle and Ewenny Priory and why were those places left in ruins? And the local families at the heart of the action; the Flemings, Berkerolles and Turbervilles, as well as Prince Hal (the future Henry V), Parliament and Owain Glyndwr himself.

In this video I discuss these events with Claire Miles (the history blogger – Hisdoryan). We talk about the origins and causes of Glyndwr’s revolt, his vision for Wales and England, the Triparteid Indenture with Mortimer and Percy, the role played by Henry IV and of course the sieges and battles of Glamorgan. We also look at the tell tale scars in the local landcsape and local buildings that show the evidence of the siege.

And we look at Glyndwr himself. Who he was, his modern legacy, how his revolt got off the ground, how it succeeded for so many years and then ultimately failed. And what was it about him that made him such a charismatic figure, a man William Shakespear described as extraordinary. In his play Henry IV (Part one) Shakespear’s characterisation of Glyndwr says this about himself:

“At my birth the front of heaven was full of fiery shapes…

These signs have marked me extraordinary.

And all the courses of my life do show

I am not in the role of common men”

For further reading, there is a chapter on the Battle of Stalling down in my book; Legends and folklore of Bridgend and the Vale

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The mysteries of Ewenny Priory

Formidable defensive walls at Ewenny Priory
The gate house at Ewenny Priory
Ewenny Priory, Ewenny (Near Bridgend) Vale of Glamorgan

Ewenny Priory is recognised by countless textbooks as the finest example of unmodernised, Norman ecclesiastical work in Britain. But despite its renown, it still holds many secrets. Not least of which, why a place supposedly built to house just 12 monks and a prior is quite so big? And given that the principal pursuit of those monks was study, scribing and worship, why was it built like a mighty fortress?

To get to the bottom of all that, we need to know something about its benefactor; Maurice De Londres and what he is likely to have had in mind when he commissioned it.

Even by the standards of other Norman, warrior knights, De Londres was a brute. He had a fearsome reputation which was dramatically encapsulated when he decapitated Princess Gwenllyan of Dehaubarth in Kidwelly. He was certainly not known to be a godly man.

He had always intended to build a mighty castle in Ewenny to provide the local Norman lordships with what scholars have ever since described as a “quadrilateral defence” of the main crossing points of the Ewenny and Ogmore rivers. With Coity and Newcastle to the North, and Ogmore and Ewenny to South. But if that was his plan, what persuaded him to instead build what we still describe today as “a priory”, a place fundamentally intended to be “a house of God”?

There is a commonly held belief that at some point, De Londres built the priory as a way of atoning for his former sins (just as Richard De Glanville did when he financed the Abbey in Neath). Call me cynical, but I am not altogether convinced by that theory. I believe that instead, his true motivation was a decree issued by Pope Honorius II himself, dated 12th April 1128 (six years after work had begun on the site). It threatened De Londres that if he did not “restore and make good whatever lands, tithes, obligations, or other valuables he had appropriated from his mother church…” – that he would be ex-communicated. In other words, De Londres had clearly plundered a pre-existing monastic building on the site and had already begun building a castle on it. But the Pope wanted it back.

There are records of this older site. The 12th Century “Book of Llandaff” lists a Celtic cell dedicated to the early Welsh saint, St Eguenni in the area. The fact that the pope had threatened De Londres with ex-communication, a fate of social disgrace from which a nobleman could not recover meant he had made De Londres an offer he could not refuse.

To say that De Londres was reluctant would be an understatement, so he built what was fundamentally the fortress he was going to build anyway but to appease the Vatican, annexed it to a priory cell and turned over its custody to the Benedictine order of St Peter at Gloucester Abbey. Hence its size. It needed to be big enough to house 13 monks to keep the pope happy, plus a detachment of men-at-arms to help De Londres subdue the troublesome Welsh.

It seems that beyond the Vatican, there was little pretence of what he had done. King Edward I stationed troops at the priory to assist with his invasion of West Wales, so he clearly knew of its intended purpose. And nearly 200 years later, when Owain Glyndwr laid siege to Coity Castle in 1405, King Henry IV stayed and launched his counterattack from Ewenny Priory. So even he knew that this priory was a castle really and only a priory in name. There is evidence to suggest that the King was also compliant in the deception as he went on to nominate Hugh Morton, the Prior at Ewenny at the time, to be appointed the next Abbot of St Peter’s Gloucester. A huge promotion for him and doubtless a reward for maintaining the pretence of what Ewenny Priory really was if the Pope ever asked.

Graham Loveluck-Edwards (published in the Glamorgan Star newspaper 18 November 2021)

If you are interested in the history of the Bridgend and Vale of Glamorgan area, why not give my book a go? It’s all about the history, the many legends and the abundance of folklore of the area and is called ‘Legends and folklore of Bridgend and the Vale’. Available from all good independent book shops, Amazon, or direct from the author at http//grahamloveluckedwards.co.uk