About 900 metres in a roughly southerly direction from the village of Pentrefelin in Gwynedd, Wales, along an ancient causeway that hugs the side of a hill across the farmland of Bron Y Gadair, in the direction of the sea, sits a small church dedicated to the Celtic saint Cynhaearn. This is a place I visit occasionally when I feel a need for solitude but have little time to walk or drive somewhere more remote. The church of St Cynhaearn, more commonly known as Ynyscynhaearn, rests in peace, alone, leaning slightly to the right, and surrounded by the sleeping graves of more than three centuries worth or more of parishioners. Nothing much happens here today. I imagine if they were to awake and cast their eyes around the churchyard, it would be as if they had never slept.
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| 'Ynyscynhaearn' © Gary Hill 2011 |
Regular services ended in 1983 and the church is now ‘redundant’ but remains consecrated and should always be so, lest it bear the ignominious fate of a large private home, or worse still, holiday cottages. Thankfully, it is designated by Cadw as a Grade II* listed building and since 2003 has been in the care of the Friends of Friendless Churches. Beyond the stone walls of the graveyard in three directions are the low-lying lush green fields that were once filled with water (hence the prefix ‘ynys’, or island), for the land used to be an inlet from the sea which became isolated when a shingle bank formed. The reclaimed land is now dotted with not quite white sheep. Facing the main church door is the small hillside on which the causeway hangs. The atmosphere here is always one of a wonderful quietness, for few people or vehicles venture this far down the narrow track.
For me, the history of this place is not one that is best gleaned from a textbook or a lecture followed by a visit forearmed with the knowledge of what to see. I knew nothing of this place before my first visit, save that it was a very old church, recommended to me by an acquaintance for no other reason than “you like hangin’ out in old churches”. I have since been surprised by the number of local people, especially those younger, who have not heard of this place. The sense of history here was palpable from the moment I entered the stone and well-worn wood lychgate to view the slate gravestones, orphaned from their corpses and lined up along the side benches. There is something about the immediacy of the sense of history in rural Wales and Ynyscynhaearn is no exception. The past can be breathed in here if you close your eyes, be still and listen. You might imagine the gallop of hooves and the voices of the old Welsh tongue in the surrounding air that is rarely still, but passes by, sometimes gently, too often ferociously.
Little is known of Cynhaearn ap Cynwel. It is believed he was a fifth (some say sixth) century monk who established Christianity and the first known church in the locality historically known as Tre’r Gest (roughly the area between the modern towns of Porthmadog and Criccieth). His brother Aelhaearn is associated with the village of Llanaelhaearn on the Llŷn Peninsula, some twenty kilometres away. The foundations of Ynyscynhaearn church are believed to date from the 7th century and the nave is from the 12th century. The earliest written records, from the 16th century, tell us that the north transept was added sometime in the 16th century and the south transept in the early 17th century. A carved wooden cherub, also believed to be 17th century, sits over the main, west door.
It is not known why Ynyscynhaearn was built on a small island completely surrounded by an inland lake, though it is likely that the banks of Llyn Ystumllyn (the tautologously named ‘lake of the meandering lake’) harboured an early settlement, evidence of which has long since gone. The church served continuously as the parish church for Tre’r Gest until the early 19th century when it fell into such disrepair that it was abandoned for a time, being rebuilt in 1832. It is recorded elsewhere as being a resting place for early Christian pilgrims making their way to Ynys Enlli, a small island just off the westernmost tip of the Llŷn Peninsula considered to be “the holy place of burial for all the bravest and best in the land" and "the land of indulgences, absolution and pardon, the road to Heaven, and the gate to Paradise”. A number of Celtic saints are buried on Ynys Enlli, which was known also, with considerable hyperbole, as the the isle of 20,000 saints. In medieval times three pilgrimages to Enlli were considered to be the equivalent of one pilgrimage to Rome.
The current building is predominantly made from long flat stone rubble with a stucco finish for the walls of the nave and the east side of the chancel. Today, the interior tends toward plain, predominantly in the Georgian style yet overlaid with some Victorian decorations made possible by the new wealth brought to the parish in the mid-19th century by nearby slate quarries and associated railways and shipping concerns and the creation of the nearby town of Portmadoc (now Porthmadog). This change of fortune was not limited to the church decor, however. Records show that the Rev. John Jones performed regular services in English unpaid between 1823-1856, but his successor was paid.
A number of interior features deserve mention. The octagonal pulpit, set against an architraved and corniced backboard and installed during the rebuild, is considered to be one of the most magnificent in Wales. It has three-decks, approached by nine steps, a second tier lectern with reading shelf and underneath a desk for those giving the readings. Stained glass windows were installed in 1899 and 1906 by Powell and Sons. One, on the north-facing wall of the church, depicts St. Cynhaearn with boat and oar in reference to the location of the church surrounded by the waters of Llyn Ystumllyn. The east-facing window is a memorial to Lieutenant-Colonel Isaac Walker and his wife Louisa Walker, late of Lincolnshire, England and Hendre Gadraeth, Pentrefelin, who purchased the chamber organ from the company of Flight & Robson of 101 Martin’s Lane, London in 1834 for £30 (equivalent to £2,481 in 2011). As the original company of Flight & Robson went into liquidation in 1832, it is uncertain whether the organ was actually made earlier and bought ‘off the shelf’ or was made to order later by George Robson, trading on the famous Flight & Robson name. Whatever the case, the organ has a sound pedigree as George Robson, later joined by his son Thomas, were responsible for many progressive designs for organs around this time fitting, for example, Corpus Christi, Cambridge in 1830 and Queens University, Belfast in 1857. Lieutenant-Colonel Walker died in 1862 and has been honoured by a limestone Gothic aedicule on the north side of the church. The Walker’s have been described as “English to the core”, but Mrs Walker appears to have learned the local language as her well-thumbed Welsh prayer book, still kept in the church, attests. On each side of the organ are six box pews one step high. These are labelled by family name on each end and seated members of the gentry and larger land-owning families from estates such as Cefn-y-Maesydd Isaf, Cefn-y-Maesydd Uchaf, Penamser and Steddfa. In the main part of the church lie some ordinary pews, labelled again by estate, for their servants. One pew was always kept curtained off for mothers to feed their babies.
During the 18th century two parishioners approached the Bishop of Bangor with a request to increase the number of services. This was refused, however, on the grounds that the ancient poorly maintained causeway to the island was too often flooded. In response, the two parishioners built the current causeway above the waterline. Later, during the following century the river feeding Llyn Ystumllyn was diverted and the lake drained. Nowadays, dry access to the church is guaranteed. A few metres adjacent to the all too easily missed spot where the causeway meets the main road through Pentrefelin is Maenhir Pentrefelin, a 3.5 metre high standing stone. Into the stone has been carved a cross and the year 1721. The actual age of the monolith is uncertain though it is conceivably Neolithic in origin, as there were many similar standing stones erected during the Neolithic era across the nearby landscape. Nevertheless, local legend has it that it was brought home from the village pub by a local farmhand who was told by his mother, in no uncertain terms, to get rid of it! Which he apparently did, to where it stands today. The size, shape and weight of the stone deem it more likely to be ancient, however.
The graveyard is a history lesson in itself. Here are buried all manner of people; a writer, soldiers, a musician, a harbourmaster and his children, captains of schooners and their wives, a railway pioneer. And of course the farmers, servants and folk who owned little except possibly the good fortune to have lived here. The web of stories that lie behind three of these graves I find particularly fascinating. All were remarkable men in their own way; one was a Welsh musician, another an English engineer and the third a humble gardener from more exotic climes who both did and did not belong in Wales.
For me, the history of this place is not one that is best gleaned from a textbook or a lecture followed by a visit forearmed with the knowledge of what to see. I knew nothing of this place before my first visit, save that it was a very old church, recommended to me by an acquaintance for no other reason than “you like hangin’ out in old churches”. I have since been surprised by the number of local people, especially those younger, who have not heard of this place. The sense of history here was palpable from the moment I entered the stone and well-worn wood lychgate to view the slate gravestones, orphaned from their corpses and lined up along the side benches. There is something about the immediacy of the sense of history in rural Wales and Ynyscynhaearn is no exception. The past can be breathed in here if you close your eyes, be still and listen. You might imagine the gallop of hooves and the voices of the old Welsh tongue in the surrounding air that is rarely still, but passes by, sometimes gently, too often ferociously.
Little is known of Cynhaearn ap Cynwel. It is believed he was a fifth (some say sixth) century monk who established Christianity and the first known church in the locality historically known as Tre’r Gest (roughly the area between the modern towns of Porthmadog and Criccieth). His brother Aelhaearn is associated with the village of Llanaelhaearn on the Llŷn Peninsula, some twenty kilometres away. The foundations of Ynyscynhaearn church are believed to date from the 7th century and the nave is from the 12th century. The earliest written records, from the 16th century, tell us that the north transept was added sometime in the 16th century and the south transept in the early 17th century. A carved wooden cherub, also believed to be 17th century, sits over the main, west door.
It is not known why Ynyscynhaearn was built on a small island completely surrounded by an inland lake, though it is likely that the banks of Llyn Ystumllyn (the tautologously named ‘lake of the meandering lake’) harboured an early settlement, evidence of which has long since gone. The church served continuously as the parish church for Tre’r Gest until the early 19th century when it fell into such disrepair that it was abandoned for a time, being rebuilt in 1832. It is recorded elsewhere as being a resting place for early Christian pilgrims making their way to Ynys Enlli, a small island just off the westernmost tip of the Llŷn Peninsula considered to be “the holy place of burial for all the bravest and best in the land" and "the land of indulgences, absolution and pardon, the road to Heaven, and the gate to Paradise”. A number of Celtic saints are buried on Ynys Enlli, which was known also, with considerable hyperbole, as the the isle of 20,000 saints. In medieval times three pilgrimages to Enlli were considered to be the equivalent of one pilgrimage to Rome.
The current building is predominantly made from long flat stone rubble with a stucco finish for the walls of the nave and the east side of the chancel. Today, the interior tends toward plain, predominantly in the Georgian style yet overlaid with some Victorian decorations made possible by the new wealth brought to the parish in the mid-19th century by nearby slate quarries and associated railways and shipping concerns and the creation of the nearby town of Portmadoc (now Porthmadog). This change of fortune was not limited to the church decor, however. Records show that the Rev. John Jones performed regular services in English unpaid between 1823-1856, but his successor was paid.
A number of interior features deserve mention. The octagonal pulpit, set against an architraved and corniced backboard and installed during the rebuild, is considered to be one of the most magnificent in Wales. It has three-decks, approached by nine steps, a second tier lectern with reading shelf and underneath a desk for those giving the readings. Stained glass windows were installed in 1899 and 1906 by Powell and Sons. One, on the north-facing wall of the church, depicts St. Cynhaearn with boat and oar in reference to the location of the church surrounded by the waters of Llyn Ystumllyn. The east-facing window is a memorial to Lieutenant-Colonel Isaac Walker and his wife Louisa Walker, late of Lincolnshire, England and Hendre Gadraeth, Pentrefelin, who purchased the chamber organ from the company of Flight & Robson of 101 Martin’s Lane, London in 1834 for £30 (equivalent to £2,481 in 2011). As the original company of Flight & Robson went into liquidation in 1832, it is uncertain whether the organ was actually made earlier and bought ‘off the shelf’ or was made to order later by George Robson, trading on the famous Flight & Robson name. Whatever the case, the organ has a sound pedigree as George Robson, later joined by his son Thomas, were responsible for many progressive designs for organs around this time fitting, for example, Corpus Christi, Cambridge in 1830 and Queens University, Belfast in 1857. Lieutenant-Colonel Walker died in 1862 and has been honoured by a limestone Gothic aedicule on the north side of the church. The Walker’s have been described as “English to the core”, but Mrs Walker appears to have learned the local language as her well-thumbed Welsh prayer book, still kept in the church, attests. On each side of the organ are six box pews one step high. These are labelled by family name on each end and seated members of the gentry and larger land-owning families from estates such as Cefn-y-Maesydd Isaf, Cefn-y-Maesydd Uchaf, Penamser and Steddfa. In the main part of the church lie some ordinary pews, labelled again by estate, for their servants. One pew was always kept curtained off for mothers to feed their babies.
During the 18th century two parishioners approached the Bishop of Bangor with a request to increase the number of services. This was refused, however, on the grounds that the ancient poorly maintained causeway to the island was too often flooded. In response, the two parishioners built the current causeway above the waterline. Later, during the following century the river feeding Llyn Ystumllyn was diverted and the lake drained. Nowadays, dry access to the church is guaranteed. A few metres adjacent to the all too easily missed spot where the causeway meets the main road through Pentrefelin is Maenhir Pentrefelin, a 3.5 metre high standing stone. Into the stone has been carved a cross and the year 1721. The actual age of the monolith is uncertain though it is conceivably Neolithic in origin, as there were many similar standing stones erected during the Neolithic era across the nearby landscape. Nevertheless, local legend has it that it was brought home from the village pub by a local farmhand who was told by his mother, in no uncertain terms, to get rid of it! Which he apparently did, to where it stands today. The size, shape and weight of the stone deem it more likely to be ancient, however.
The graveyard is a history lesson in itself. Here are buried all manner of people; a writer, soldiers, a musician, a harbourmaster and his children, captains of schooners and their wives, a railway pioneer. And of course the farmers, servants and folk who owned little except possibly the good fortune to have lived here. The web of stories that lie behind three of these graves I find particularly fascinating. All were remarkable men in their own way; one was a Welsh musician, another an English engineer and the third a humble gardener from more exotic climes who both did and did not belong in Wales.
The First Grave: Dafydd Y Garreg Wen
The first and only traditional flat grave is that of Dafydd Owen, more popularly known as Dafydd Y Garreg Wen (David of the White Rock) after the small lake and farm occupying land between Morfa Bychan and Borth Y Gest, where he lived. Much of the farmland is now taken up by a holiday park of chalets and caravans. There is some confusion as to his actual date of birth but the records of the National Library of Wales suggest he was born blind in January of either 1711 or 1712, to Owen Humphreys of the parish of Ynyscynhaearn and Gwen Humphreys (nee Roberts), originally of Isallt Fawr, Llanfihangel-y-Pennant, a little further inland from Pentrefelin. His gravestone, however, suggests he was born in 1720. Gwen's father, Robert David (1654-1738) is believed to be a direct descendant of Owain Gwynedd ap Gruffydd (c.1100-1170), the first man to be given the title 'Prince of Wales'.
Despite his blindness Dafydd became a harpist and composer of some note, writing a number of well-known airs including ‘Codiad yr Ehedydd’ (‘The Rising of the Lark’), and ‘Difyrrwch Gwŷr Criccieth’ (‘The Delight of the Men of Criccieth’). ‘Codiad yr Ehedydd’ is played at the cenotaph in London every Remembrance Day on the second Sunday in November. It is said that he fell asleep on a hillside between Borth Y Gest and Pentrefelin and dreamed the melody, woke up and was able to play the tune.
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| 'Bedd David Owen' © Gary Hill 2011 |
According to his gravestone Dafydd died aged 29 years in 1749. Tradition has it that as he lay dying of an illness, he asked his wife for his harp and played the sad, slow haunting air since named after him, ‘Dafydd Y Garreg Wen’. He then requested that it be played on a solo Welsh harp at his funeral. Which it was. His simple, flat slate tombstone depicts a harp and tells us in Welsh that he was "a superb harpist" and "the glory of Wales".
After his death the air became a popular choice and the notation was later included in Edward Jones’s influential book of 1784, ‘Musical and Poetical Relicks of the Welsh Bards’. In 1803 the Scottish music publisher, George Thompson, who had already gained a reputation for having Robbie Burns’s poetry put to music, commissioned Joseph Haydn to write arrangements for five Welsh airs including ‘Codiad yr Ehedydd’ and ‘Dafydd Y Garreg Wen’. Thompson’s method when commissioning musical arrangements was to allow the composer only the basic melody, without title, history or other knowledge that may influence. In the case of ‘Dafydd Y Garreg Wen’, Haydn’s empathic nature came to the fore; he created a suitably beautiful and melancholic version for violin, cello and piano. The title was later added to the composer’s manuscript and Haydn’s arrangement used as the basis for a further commission of lyrics (in English) to accompany the music. This commission was taken up by the Rev. George Warrington then of Pleasely, Derbyshire, who was later to become vicar at Hope, Flintshire and Canon of St Asaph Cathedral. Later arrangements were written by others including Benjamin Britten for both piano and voice and harp and voice. Sir Walter Scott’s poem the “The Dying Bard” written three years after the original commission, in 1806, was also based on the story of Dafydd on his deathbed.
The words most commonly sung today, usually in the original Welsh, were added to the air by John Ceiriog Hughes, who was born at Pen Y Bryn farm in the hills above the village of Llanarmon Dyffryn Ceiriog in Denbighshire (now part of the county of Wrexham). An avid collector of Welsh folk tunes, he produced many verses for traditional harp music and published a book of such verse in 1863, “Cant O Ganeuon ("A Hundred Songs"), originally intended to be the first of three volumes but unfortunately never completed. He was a poet who insisted on writing with emotional sincerity with a heavy empasis on the vernacular and because because of this Ceiriog Hughes has been likened to a Welsh Robbie Burns or Samuel Coleridge. A literal English translation of his lyric is:
'Carry', said David, 'my harp to me'
I would like, before dying, to give a tune on her
Lift my hands to reach the strings
God bless you, my widow and children!
Last night I heard an angel's voice like this:
"David, come home and play through the glen!"
Harp of my youth, farewell to your strings!
God bless you, my widow and children!
On February 13, 1923, Mostyn Thomas sang ‘Dafydd Y Garreg Wen’ at the opening of the inaugural program broadcast on BBC Radio Wales. Since then the song has been recorded by diverse artists including the tenor Peter Pears, bass-baritone Bryn Terfel, soprano Angharad Gabriel, and folk singer Cerys Matthews.
The Second Grave: James Spooner
The next grave, a family affair comprising a more ostentatious mounted urn surrounded by a yew and an ornate railing, is that of James Spooner. Spooner was an Englishman, born at Leigh, near Worcester in 1790, who trained as a land surveyor, working initially for the Ordnance Survey. He first came to Wales in 1818 with his wife Elizabeth, who he had married five years earlier, to survey the route for a railway from the slate quarries in the hills surrounding Blaenau Ffestiniog to the harbour at Portmadoc.
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| 'James Spooner's Grave' © Gary Hill 2011 |
The customary method of transporting the slate was slow and cumbersome. Slate was carried by horse and cart and pack animals over rough tracks to the River Dwyryd where it was loaded onto shallow boats and taken downstream to be loaded onto larger sailing ships capable of traversing the open sea. Carts and animals would then have to make the return journey unladen. The plan was to speed the downward journey by building a free-running gravity fed railway with horse-drawn carriages returning on the rails to the quarries. Spooner surveyed two routes to Portmadoc. The first, completed in 1825, followed three inclines on the western slopes of Moelwyn Mawr and Moelwyn Bach, on a route that later became the Croesor Tramway. The second survey, completed in 1831, was based on a similar route previously proposed by WA Provis in 1825. This was decided upon as the eventual route of the Ffestiniog Railway, which was built between 1832-1836, but only after twice being refused by parliament. It is now considered to be the oldest independent railway company in the world.
Spooner’s route had the slate travelling downward from the individual quarries on two branch-lines which met where the town of Blaenau Ffestiniog exists today. The loaded wagons then descended, entirely by gravity, for nearly 20 km to the harbour at Portmadoc. The route was steep with a number of sharp curves, including one U-bend, and a 20 metre high embankment. Two tunnels were also built. A fully laden downward journey took 1 hour and 40 minutes while the return upward journey, often carrying workers, took almost 6 hours.
James Spooner remained at the Ffestiniog railway for the rest of his life serving as Company Clerk from 1836-1845, overseeing the construction of the railway in conjunction with Thomas Pritchard, an engineer who had previously worked on the Chester to Holyhead line with the pioneering railway engineers, George and Robert Stephenson. He was then Company Secretary until his death in 1856. In the final years of service he investigated the possibility of converting the Ffestiniog operation to using steam locomotives. In what would nowadays be considered a conflict of interest James Spooner was further employed as quarry agent and engineer to the Ffestiniog Railway’s principal customer, the Oakley Quarries, run by Louisa Jane Oakeley, after the death of her husband William Griffith Oakeley in 1835.
William Oakeley had built several slate quays on the River Dwyryd and was himself involved in the creation of the Ffestiniog Railway. Under Louisa Oakeley’s management the town of Blaenau Ffestiniog thrived and she was particularly instrumental in the building of a hospital for the quarry employees. In the following years, however, she he started to lose interest in the family business, becoming increasingly reclusive. She eventually left the family home at Plas Tan Y Bwlch near Maentwrog to live in a hotel in Shrewsbury with a maid. In 1867 her nephew and heir to the Oakeley quarries, William Edward Oakeley, had her examined by a doctor in order to have her certified insane, without success. A year later, however, she signed over the management, but not ownership, of the estate to him. She died in 1879, having never returned to Wales.
James Spooner’s involvement in the fledgling Ffestiniog railway marked the beginning of a railway dynasty. When James and Elizabeth first came to North Wales they had three small children, Matthew aged four years, James aged two years and Caroline aged one year and continued to have children with astonishing regularity. They resided at Maentwrog for the first six years and during this time had four more children, Charles Easton in 1818, Louisa in 1820, Thomas in 1822 and Amelia in 1824. They then moved to William Maddocks’s (the founder of Portmadoc) former home at Plas Tan Yr Allt near Tremadog. The romantic poet and gothic novelist Percy Bysshe Shelley had been a previous tenant in 1812-1813. He fled to Ireland owing William Maddocks a considerable sum of money for rent after an armed intruder broke into the house and allegedly tried to murder him. Here, one child was born, Elizabeth in 1827. A further move in 1829 saw the family again reside in a home of William Maddocks, Morfa Lodge in Portmadoc, on Maddocks’s death while travelling through France in 1829. This house saw the birth of Harriet in 1830 and William in 1834.
Elizabeth died in 1850. Before the year was out Spooner, against the wishes of his children, married Eliza. After six years of marriage James Spooner himself died on 18th August leaving Eliza Spooner as the sole executor of his will. Although the will stipulated that his estate was to pass in equal part to all children, Eliza refused to comply and managed to inherit the entire estate herself. This was not the only tragedy to befall the family. In 1829 15-year old Matthew accidentally shot his 12-year old sister Caroline, killing her. Five years later, Matthew took his own life in France.
Three of James’s and Elizabeth’s sons had careers involving railways. James Jnr became a railway engineer and worked in Australia for 12 years before returning to Wales to survey the Tal Y Llyn slate quarry railway in 1863. Thomas was a lawyer who acted for the Ffestiniog railway for many years. The Spooner family’s involvement in the Ffestiniog Railway was most notably continued in the work of Charles Easton Spooner, however. Charles had worked initially alongside his father and Thomas Prichard during construction of the rail line and, after working with the finest British engineer of the time, Isambard Kingdom Brunel, returned to Wales in 1847. He was duly appointed Company Treasurer and in 1856, on the death of his father, became Company Secretary, a position he held until 1887 when he was forced to retire due to ill-health. During his tenure, the company laid heavier steel rails to carry it’s first steam locomotives (one of which was named after his father) and the Boston Lodge railway workshops were built. He was a noted author and lecturer on the subject of narrow-gauge railways, and his book, ‘Narrow Gauge Railways’, published in 1871, was considered a standard text.
Charles married his wife, Mary in 1848 and although she died twelve years later in 1860, the couple nevertheless had five children. Two of James Spooner’s grandsons also achieved illustrious careers in railways. The eldest, George Percival, born in 1850 had an affair with one of the family’s domestic staff who became pregnant. To save the family embarrassment, he was exiled to India where he eventually became Locomotive Superintendent of the Indian Railways. A younger son, Charles Edwin, born in 1853, qualified as an engineer at Trinity College, Dublin. After working on railways in Wales, he moved to Ceylon in 1876 where he worked as a surveyer. In 1891 he took the position of State Engineer for Selangor in Malaya followed, in 1901, by his appointment as General Manager of the Federated Malay States Railways. Again the Spooner family did not escape tragedy, however. James Alfred, born in 1855, lived for only six weeks, while their daughter Mary Elizabeth, born in 1859 died of either typhoid or bubonic plague in January 1864. Mary’s nurse Elizabeth Preece also contracted the disease and died two days later.
The Third Grave: Jack Ystumllyn
The humblest of the three graves at Ynyscynhaearn is that of Jack (or John) Ystumllyn, or Jack Black as he was also known. His is arguably the most extraordinary story of them all. He hailed from the west coast of Africa (though his grave erroneously says India) and was captured by a member of the Wynne family, possibly Ellis Wynne of Maes Y Neuadd, near Talsarnau in a year variously put between 1742 and 1746. Similarly inexact, his age at the time has been put somewhere between eight and thirteen years of age. A portrait of Jack painted in 1754 seems to show a young man of about 16 years of age.
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| 'Jack Ystumllyn's Grave' © Gary Hill 2011 |
He was said to have remembered being captured (apparently not for slavery but as an ‘adventure’), while fishing and hunting moorhens by a stream and to have heard his mother crying out to him when he was taken. On arrival in Wales he was taken to a Wynne family residence at Ystumllyn House whose estate surrounded Ynyscynhaearn church. The house can still be seen from the door of the church. He is said to have had no language but to have been able to utter only screeches and howling noises. It is highly unlikely, however, that he was unable to speak any language and more likely he was simply terrified at finding himself in such a strange place, having been taken away from his people, culture and environment.
Kept as a servant by the Wynne family and named Jack, he was taught horticulture and employed as the farm's gardener. It is said that he grew to be a very quiet man, kind to others and fond of flowers. He became fluent in both Welsh and English by his late teens, was baptised at Ynyscynhaearn and slowly but surely integrated into the local community. In 1768 in Dolgellau he married Margaret Gruffydd of Hendre Mur, Trawsfynydd who worked as a maid at Ystumllyn House. The story goes that when she first set eyes on him she screamed and ran away!
At some point Jack and Margaret moved to Maes Y Neuadd near Talsarnau to work for William Wynne (later known as William Nanney), then Sheriff of Merionethshire (now Meirionnydd). They had seven children whilst there and returned to Ystumllyn House some years later when, because Jack was in poor health, they were given a thatched cottage with a garden and a small field. Jack was ill for some time and died in 1786, probably in his mid to late forties, after confessing on his deathbed that he had sinned by playing the fiddle on the sabbath. His gravestone, again erroneously, is dated 1790, the year it was believed to have been laid. It reads, in the style of an englyn, a traditional Welsh short poem:
Yn India gynna'm ganwyd a nghamrau
Yng Nghymru'm bedyddiwyd;
Wele'r fan dan lechan lwyd
Du oeraidd y'm daearwyd.
Which translates as:
India (sic) was the land of my birth,
but I was baptised in Wales;
this spot, marked by a grey slate
is my cold, dark resting place.
Margaret survived Jack by 42 years and died aged 81 years in 1828. Little is known of their children except for one son who was employed for some years as a gamekeeper for Lord Newborough. Descendants are said to have been found in Llandwrog (a Richard Jones in 1862), a granddaughter in Portmadoc (Ann Jones in 1888) and possibly members of a Martin family in Liverpool. Almost certainly there are still numerous local residents with Jack Black’s blood.
The author Alltud Eifion (the pen name of Robert Isaac Jones, born in Pentrefelin, also buried at Ynyscynhaearn and the pharmacist grandson of Dr Isaac Roberts who attended to Jack throughout his illness) wrote about Jack’s life story first in a pamphlet entitled ‘John Ystumllyn or Jack Black: The Story of His Life and Tales About Him’ published in 1888 and later in his book of the history of the area ‘Y Gestiana; A History of Tre’r Gest’, published in 1892, both written in the Welsh language. Although Alltud Eifion’s writing would nowadays be considered to display overtly racial stereotyping, he nevertheless gives us some of the flavour of the local community’s attitude to Jack. He suggests, for example, that as a young man Jack was very popular with the ladies and implies that he could have had his pick of several before marrying Margaret. It is interesting to note also that Alltud Eifion makes no mention of any opposition to Jack and Margaret marrying, and the church seem to have had no misgivings in performing the ceremony. This is surprising given that the Church of England at the time was actively involved in the slave trade from West Africa to the West Indies and, at it's Codrington plantation in Barbados, owned over 400 slaves, 40% of whom died within three years of arrival. Jack and Margaret's wedding suggests, therefore, that racist attitudes in the Church in Wales were perhaps not as entrenched as those of the parent Church of England. Contrast this attitude from two hundred and fifty years ago with that of 2011 in, for example, the Gulnare Freewill Baptist Church in Kentucky, were exclusively white church members voted to refuse membership to mixed race couples on biblical grounds.
I find it interesting also to contrast Jack’s experience in Wales with that of a near contemporary, the (now, at least) prejudicially named Sambo who was brought to Sunderland Point in Lancashire, England in either 1720 or 1736, depending on which source is used. Sambo had been brought from the West Indies and forced to serve as the servant of an unnamed merchant ship’s captain. An article in the Lonsdale Magazine of 1822 describes what happened after the ship docked at Sunderland Point:
"After she had discharged her cargo, he was placed at the inn ... with the intention of remaining there on board wages till the vessel was ready to sail; but supposing himself to be deserted by the master, without being able, probably from his ignorance of the language, to ascertain the cause, he fell into a complete state of stupefaction, even to such a degree that he secreted himself in the loft on the brewhouses and stretching himself out at full length on the bare boards refused all sustenance. He continued in this state only a few days, when death terminated the sufferings of poor Samboo. As soon as Samboo’s exit was known to the sailors who happened to be there, they excavated him in a grave in a lonely dell in a rabbit warren behind the village, within twenty yards of the sea shore, whither they conveyed his remains without either coffin or bier, being covered only with the clothes in which he died."
Unlike Jack, there is no mention of medical help being sought. It is possible that Sambo contracted an infectious disease for which he had no natural immunity, and certainly more likely than the early romanticised version of the tale that he had died of a broken heart due to the absence of his beloved master.
Because Sambo was not baptised Christian, he was refused burial in the local churchyard and his shoreline grave was unmarked for at least sixty years until 1796 when the Rev James Watson, ironically the brother of the prominent Lancaster slave trader William Watson, and a Mr H. Bell raised money from local people for a brass plaque. Rev. Watson wrote the epitaph:
“Here lies
poor SAMBOO
a faithfull NEGRO
who
(attending his master from the West Indies)
DIED on his arrival in SUNDERLAND.
Full sixty years the angry Winter’s Wave
has thundering dafhd this bleak and barren Shore
since SAMBO’S head laid in this lonely GRAVE
lies still and ne’er will hear their turmoil more.
Full many a Sand-bird chirps upon the Sod
And many a moonlight Elfin round him trips
Full many a Summer's Sunbeam warms the Clod
And many a teeming cloud upon him drips.
But still he sleeps -- till the awakening Sounds
Of the Archangel's Trump new Life impart
Then the GREAT JUDGE his Approbation founds
Not on man's COLOR but his WORTH of HEART.”
The grave is only accessible via a narrow track, which crosses a salt marsh and is cut off at high tide. In common with Jack’s grave, there is a mistake; the inscription initially says 'here lies poor Samboo', but later refers to 'Sambo'. The recognised name of the location, however, has become known as 'Sambo's Grave’. The current plaque is a copy of the original, and a further telling contrast of the differences in attitude toward Jack and Sambo. The newer version adds:
“Thoughtless and irreverent people having damaged & defaced the plate, this replica was
affixed. RESPECT THIS LONELY GRAVE”
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