| Ddisgrifiad / Description | Ysbyty Ifan means John's Hospital or Hospice and there once was a Hospice of the Knight's Hospitallers (Knights of St. John of Jerusalem) here. It was founded c.1190; its endowments were increased by Llewelyn the Great in 1221-1224. On the Dissolution of the Monasteries, the church became parochial and pre-Reformation parts seemed to have survived in a building demolished only in 1858.
The replacement by George Benmore was opened in 1861 and was doubtlessly built on the original foundations. Some interesting monuments from the old church have been preserved and three mutilated effigies that stood in a small northern chapel attached to the former church form a family group. They represent Rhys ap Merdydd, said to be one of the standard bearers of the Earl of Richmond at Bosworth, a stangely diminutive figure with an absence of knightly panoply that occasioned doubts of its correct ascription. The oldest tombstone is one to Elizabeth, wife of Robert Price of Gilar who died in 1616. There are no traces of the buildings of the Hospice.
Original Index No. V0026. |