Abbeycwmhir

Abbeycwmhir or Abbey Cwmhir is a village and community in the valley of the Nant Clywedog in Radnorshire, Powys, Wales. The community includes the hamlet of Bwlch-y-sarnau.

The village is named after Cwmhir Abbey, the Cistercian abbey built there in 1143. It was the largest Abbey in Wales, but was never completed. Its fourteen bay nave was longer than Canterbury and Salisbury Cathedral naves and twice as long as that at St. Davids. It was a daughter house of Whitland Abbey, and constructed at the behest of three sons of Madog, the then Prince of southern Powys. The first community at Dyvanner failed because of the intervention of Hugh de Mortimer, Earl of Hereford but in 1176 the Rhys ap Gruffydd of Deheubarth re-established the Abbey on land given by Cadwallon ap Madog. Llywelyn ap Gruffudd is buried near the altar in the nave. The abbey was burned by the forces of Owain Glyndŵr in 1401. At the dissolution of the monasteries in March 1537 only three monks lived in the abbey.

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