Skirmish at Builth Wells 1645
History & Significance
Builth Wells (; Welsh: Llanfair-ym-Muallt ) is a market town and community in the county Powys and historic county Brecknockshire (Breconshire), mid-Wales, lying at the confluence of rivers Wye and Irfon in the Welsh (or upper) part of the Wye Valley. In 2011 it had a population of 2,568.
Builth is a longstanding anglicisation of the Old Welsh Buellt or Buallt, which combines bu 'ox' and gellt (later gwellt) 'lea or leas'.
The town added Wells in the 19th century when its springs were promoted as a visitor attraction. Its modern Welsh name Llanfair-ym-Muallt means 'Saint Mary in Ox Leas'.
The cantref of Buellt, which lends its name to the modern town, was centered around Builth, and remained unusually independent of larger powers during the Early Middle Ages.
The first major development recorded at the location of modern Builth was an 11th-century Norman motte-and-bailey castle, built by the marcher lord Philip de Braose on the banks of the Wye, where it overlooked an important ford across the river. Due to its highly strategic position, the castle regularly traded hands between the native Welsh princes and the marcher lords vying for control of the Welsh Marches. Later on, during his conquest of Wales in the late 13th century, the English king Edward I ordered the construction of the much larger, stone-built Builth Castle on the site of the older fort. In 1278, he also granted the town of Builth, which had sprung up around the fortification, the right to hold a market.
On 27 December 1690, a devastating fire tore through Builth, which at the time had a population of roughly 400. A significant part of the town was destroyed, with damages of £10,780 recorded, equivalent to millions today. Although donations towards the rebuilding effort came from as far afield as Lincoln, very little made it to the ordinary inhabitants of the town, who were forced to take apart the masonry of the castle to rebuild the town.
During the Victorian era, Builth began to gain a name for itself as a spa town, with the springs at Glanne Wells and Park Wells attracting significant tourism to the area. This success was buoyed by the opening of a railway station in 1860, which dramatically increased the towns popularity. The town's population grew substantially in this time period, from 677 in 1801 to 1,455 in 1881, and the town itself saw significant urban development, such as a drainage and water system installed in 1868 and a major expansion of housing to fit the growing populace.
As the tourism industry declined, Builth turned towards agriculture, and the town acquired its first dedicated livestock market in 1910. This eventually led to the Royal Welsh Agricultural Show settling on nearby Llanelwedd, just across the river, as its permanent home in 1963.
The ground they fought on
The site of Skirmish at Builth Wells 1645 lies on Wenlock Rocks (Undifferentiated), bedrock that formed in the Wenlock. The rock here is mudstone, siltstone and sandstone.
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- Builth Wells - Wikipedia · Wikipedia
- Builth Castle - Wikipedia · Wikipedia
- RCAHMW | The Inventory of Historic Battlefields in Wales · RCAHMW