|
Abbey Dore is a
village and parish in the lower Golden Valley in
Herefordshire. It takes its name from the Cistercian
Abbey on the Dore - Dore Abbey - founded in the 12th
century.
The lower Dore forms the extreme eastern edge of
what was in the early medieval period the British
(we would now say Welsh) commote of Ewyas. The
northern boundary of the commote was marked by Cusop
Hill and its south-eastern one by the River Monnow.
To the south-west the Grwyne Fawr valley formed its
boundary and the lower reaches of the River Dore
seem to have marked its easternmost extent. The
name Ewyas, a purely Welsh name, may mean sheep
district.
When we first hear of Ewyas it is a commote of the
kingdom of Glywysing/Gwent, although there are hints
of an earlier time when it may have been a separate
small kingdom – perhaps with the eponymous Clodock
as king. To the east was the area known as Ergyng
which had its own dynasty of kings in the 6th
and 7th centuries. Gwrgan is the last
person recorded as King of Ergyng, and probably died
in about 645. Gwrgan’s daughter, Onbraust, married
Meurig of Glywysing/Gwent, and their son Athrwys
became king of the whole territory.
|
|
From the Welsh point of view, northern Ergyng drops
out of sight in the mid 9th century.
Writing in the 12th century the author of
the 'Life' of St Oudoceus (Euddogwy) says that the
area was lost to the English 'from Moccas to the
Dore to the Worm to the Tarader'. It was this that
brought the English Mercians to the border of Ewyas
and therefore to the Dore opposite where the abbey
would be built.
In 1039 King Gruffydd ap Llewellyn killed Iago ap
Idwal and gained possession of Gwynedd and Powys.
In that year he defeated Leofric, earl of Mercia at
Rhyd-y-groes, near Welshpool. It may have been in
response to the growing power of Gruffydd that, with
domination of Ergyng, or Ircingafeld
(Archenfield) in English, complete, moves
were made to expand the English territory. In about
1046 Osbern Pentecost, a Norman follower of Edward
the Confessor, built a castle within Ewyas, at the
place now known as Ewyas Harold. This castle,
together with one at Richards Castle, appears to be
the first built in Britain. The Ewyas castle was a
portent. Short-lived as the first castle proved to
be, it was nonetheless the castle of a Norman lord
on Welsh territory, and as such deserves its place
in history.
The Norman Conquest of England radically changed the
balance of power on the border. William fitz Osbern
become Earl of Hereford, and was granted wide
powers. He built castles at Chepstow, Monmouth,
Clifford and Wigmore and the castles at Hereford and
Ewyas Harold were rebuilt. In 1073 the Normans
ravaged Ceredigion and Dyfed, moving into areas that
the English had never penetrated. By 1086, the
ancient Welsh kingdom of Gwent, with its origins in
Roman Britain and the civitates of the Silures at
Caerwent, had ceased to exist.
Domesday records that Alfred of Marlborough held the
castle of Ewyas of the king. This was presumably
the re-built Pentecost Castle.
The name Abbey Dore, although having an obvious
derivation, only came into use some time between
1727 and 1831. When the abbey was built, it was at
a place called Blancharbesal. In the 6th
century the British name may have been
Lann Cerniu – ‘the church of the Cornishman’.
The Cornishman being Digain, the son of King
Constantine Gorneu of Dumnonia.
Abbey Dore was founded in 1147 by Robert of Ewyas.
It was a house of Cistercian monks. Cistercians
followed the rule of St Benedict and saw themselves
as a return to the purity of the original form of
the rule. Their habit was white – they wove their
own cloth from sheep raised on their own pastures.
The monastery was that of St Mary of Dore; all
Cistercian monasteries were dedicated to Our Lady.
The civil partition of the old Welsh commote of
Ewyas was effected in 1536 by what is often
erroneously referred to as the Act of Union.
Eastern Ewyas Became part of England. The border
between Welsh and English diocese had already been
drawn to the east with Bacton in the diocese of
Hereford and Ewyas Harold in St David’s. That part
of the parish of Abbey Dore west of the river is
believed to have originally been in Bacton.
Re-drawing the border did not stop people believing
that places like Ewyas, Dulas and Llanveynoe and
Llancillo were still Welsh. In 1540 John Leland
described Dore Abbey as being ‘in the diocese, but
not in the shire of Hereford.’ In Walterstone some
church services were still being conducted in Welsh
in 1830. Generally it seems likely that English was
the dominant language by this time - the ap Roberts
had become Proberts and the ap Rhyses, Preeces.
In 1852 the last Welsh administrative vestige was
removed when the Parishes of Clodock with Longtown,
Michaelchurch Escley, Craswell, St Margarets, Ewyas
Harold, Rowlestone, Llancillo, Walterstone, Dulas
and Llanveynoe were transferred from the diocese of
St Davids to that of Hereford. To the west of
Hatterall Ridge, the other old parishes of Ewyas –
Llanthony, Cwmyoy and Oldcastle - were transferred
from St David's to the diocese of Llandaff. Another
anomaly was removed at this time, the parish of
Fwddag in Cwmyoy was not only transferred from St
Davids to Llandaff but also from Herefordshire to
Monmouthshire, and thereby from England to Wales.
In 1921 the Welsh parishes became part of the new
Bishopric of Monmouth.
|
