Pant y Beddau Hafod

From the book Parishes Of The Buzzard by Ruth Bidgood. One night in 1868. The story tells of Stephen lloyd of Pantybeudiau, an ancestor of Mrs D. Jones, formely of abergwesyn Post Office. Over the desolate mountain of esgair Garthen flanking the Claerwen Valley stretched in those days the huge sheepwalks of Moelprysgau, owned by the Nanteos Estate. Neighbouring farmers had long used it for grazing sheep and cattle. To prevent them from claiming right of common, Colonel Powell and his tenant built an isolated cottage, Pantybeudiau, and installed Stephen Lloyd in it as shepard to keep off trespassers. One night when Lloyd was away from home to attend a funeral, his young wife Elizabeth had only her small baby and ten year old sister Mary for company. After midnight she was awakened by dogs barking, and heared the swish of feet approaching over the tussoky ground. No house near, no help possible. Loud knocks at the door were followed by the crash of breaking windows. Elizabeth lit a candle, but it was blown out when the door was lifted off its hinges. Ferrified, she cried for mercy into the windy dark. ‘Come out!’ shouted the unssen attackers. ‘Where is your master?’ She begged for time to get her sister and the baby out out of bed, but the men burst in, great mob of them it seemed. One hustled Mary outside, another grabbed an armful of clothes from the hanging press and thrust them after her. Elizabeth took up the baby and went out. Lights flared in the blackness. Furniture was dragged out, pots, pans and treasured china from the dresser were thrown on the dunghill. With bar and pick-axes, the men pulled down the little house and set fire to its remains and to the hattrick and peat-stack. The flames revealed about fifteen men, some with coats turned inside out and all with blackened faces, in manner of Rebecca Rioters. They scattered the remaining stones, and disappeared into the darkness of the waste. Only the turf-stack was still glowing when the young woman set out, baby in her arms and the little girl clinging her hand, on the long walk through the night to seek shelter. A reward was later offered for information, but the guilt of the suspects was never proved. The ruins of rebuilt Pantybeudiau can still be reached along the west bank of Claerwen reservoir, not far above the shore of the lake. Elizabeth is said to have been very ill after her ordeal, but she survived, as did the little girl and baby.
Map Ref SN83773 64955

Pant y Beddau Root Clamp

Root Clamp associated with Pant y Beddau.
Map Ref SN83811 64971

Pant y Beddau Building

Remains of a building associated with Pant y Beddau.
Map Ref SN83720 64970

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