page_title: Llanthony Priory
section_title: The 18th and 19th centuries
hierarchical_section_title: Llanthony Priory / History / The 18th and 19th centuries
caption_attribution_description: English: The Church of St David Llanthony Llanthony is a corruption of the Welsh 'Llan-ddewi-nant-honddu' meaning the Llan of St David on the River Honddu.
context_page_description: Llanthony Priory is a partly ruined former Augustinian priory in the secluded Vale of Ewyas, a steep-sided once-glaciated valley within the Black Mountains area of the Brecon Beacons National Park in Monmouthshire, south east Wales. It lies seven miles north of Abergavenny on an old road to Hay-on-Wye at Llanthony. The priory ruins lie to the west of the prominent Hatterrall Ridge, a limb of the Black mountains. The main ruins are under the care of Cadw and entrance is free.
  The priory is a Grade I listed building as of 1 September 1956. Within the precincts of the Priory are three other buildings with Grade I listed status: the Abbey Hotel, listed on 1 September 1956; St David's Church, listed on the same date, and Court Farm Barn, listed on 9 January in the same year.
context_section_description: The buildings at Llanthony gradually decayed after the Dissolution to a ruin, although in the early 18th century the medieval infirmary was converted to the Church of St David.  In 1799 the estate was bought by Colonel Sir Mark Wood, the owner of Piercefield House near Chepstow, who converted some of the buildings into a domestic house  and shooting box. He then sold the estate in 1807 to the poet Walter Savage Landor.
  Landor needed an Act of Parliament, passed in 1809, to be allowed to pull down some of Wood's buildings and construct a house, which was never finished. He wanted to become a model country gentleman, planting trees, importing sheep from Spain, and improving the roads. There is still an avenue of trees in the area known as "Landor's Larches" and many old chestnuts have been dated back to his time.
  Landor described the idylls of country life, including the nightingales and glow-worms in the valley to his friend Robert Southey. However the idyll was not to last long as for the next three years Landor was worried by the combined vexation of neighbours and tenants, lawyers and lords-lieutenant and even the Bishop of St David's. Many of his troubles stemmed from petty squabbles, arising from his headstrong and impetuous nature. He wasted money trying to improve the land, and the condition of the poorer inhabitants. The final straw was when he let his farmland to one Charles Betham whom Landor viewed as incompetent and extravagant and who paid no rent. After an expensive action to recover the debts from Betham, Landor had had enough, and decided to leave the country, abandoning Llanthony to his creditors – principally his mother. The estate was administered in his absence by his mother and cousin, but many of the buildings continued to disintegrate thereafter.
  In 1869, Joseph Leycester Lyne (known as Father Ignatius) founded an Anglican monastic institution in nearby Capel-y-ffin which he named Llanthony Abbey.  It survived until 1908, and its buildings were later the home of artist Eric Gill.
caption: St David's
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