Before It's Forgotten

A Famous Conductor
The enquiry by Mrs. C. Lewis, Gwynea, Llandeilo in Volume VII of The Carmarthenshire Historian regarding the history of the house known as New Inn on the outskirts of Llandeilo and on the road to Talley, prompts me to submit the following information.

During the nineteenth century a family named Wood lived there. In Llandeilo Parish Church there is a wall memorial in the nave inscribed

Sacred to the Memory of
John Wood of Cardiff
in the county of Glamorgan, Esquire
who died April 21, 1846
and was interred in the New Inn Vault
Underneath this Church.

Through the courtesy of Mr. D. J. Hughes, Churchwarden I was able to go down under the church, but there was no evidence of the New Inn Vault there.

Returning to the church itself it was good and pleasant to examine and admire a beautiful stained glass window in the Glancennen chapel, a triptych depicting Faith, Hope and Charity and inscribed

To the Glory of God and in Memory of
Edward Robert Wood
Born February 10, 1810
Died September 27, 1876.

The inscriptions and the nature of the memorials indicate that the family was an established and a landed one. This is further borne out by information concerning the family which I heard from the late Mr. Carey Morris, the Llandeilo artist. He recounted how at a musical conversazione in Chelsea early in this century he had met the conductor, Sir Henry Wood. When Mr. Carey Morris said he was from Llandeilo Sir Henry became very excited and asked for much information and explained that he had invariably spent his childhood holidays at Llandeilo with relatives, members of the Wood family, at New Inn.

I recall that the late Mr. Robert Morris, brother of the artist, had in his possession a large number of old parchments, maps, deeds, tithe returns etc. relating to the Wood family of New Inn.

EIRWEN JONES, Noddfa, Llandeilo.

A Carmarthen Oddity
'A few old Flemish houses may be observed in the more ancient parts of the town. Their characteristic feature is the awkward size and position of the chimney, which occupies a prominent position in the front wall. The Old Plough in Lammas Street ... is a striking example.'

So wrote William Spurrell in Carmarthen and Its Neighbourhood when it was first published in 1860, and in view of its projected demolition to make way for a proposed new carriageway past Friar's Park to Blue Street one wonders whether the building shown in the accompanying picture and forming part of Bowen's Garage is the one to which Spurrell referred.

Older people will remember the Old Plough a couple of doors further west beyond the garage entrance, where there used to be a little shop in the end house before the street-line falls back to the Falcon Hotel. The name Old Plough painted on the wall of this house may still be discerned under later coats of paint.

But a street plan (deposited in the County Record Office, Carmarthen) prepared in 1786 by T. Lewis in surveying property belonging to John Vaughan of Golden Grove describes the whole block of buildings between the access to Friar's Park and the Falcon Hotel as 'The Plow &c — Richard Archard'. It is therefore likely that Spurrell was referring to the building shown in the picture.

The building certainly has the 'characteristic feature' described by Spurrell, an additional curiosity being the display window which has been constructed in the chimney breast. It may have been refaced since Spurrell's time; otherwise the building seems to fit his description. But whether it is a 'Flemish house' is a question I leave to competent authority to answer, bearing in mind that somebody has more recently discounted the view that buildings of this type in south-west Wales are Flemish.

GWERNEN, Carmarthen.

SKEEL GOES MARCHING ON
"I found this story most fascinating," writes Mr. A. L. Kipling of Aldershot in referring to an article in Volume VII [correction Volume VIII -- ChrisJones] of The Carmarthenshire Historian by Major Francis Jones, Wales Herald Extraordinary under the title 'Marching With Thomas Skeel', which incorporated the journal of an early nineteenth century soldier from Laugharne.

"As I am the Hon. Editor of the Journal of the Society for Army Historical Research, I would like very much to reprint it in this Journal," adds Mr. Kipling.

Permission to reproduce the article has been willingly granted — if only for the sake of Thomas Skeel. They say old soldiers never die, but Skeel, bless him, refuses to fade away too.