Shakespeare and Clydach

Clydach -  and Shakespeare’s  Midsummer Night’s Dream

The story goes that Shakespeare himself not only visited Clydach on his travels, but that he also drew inspiration for  Midsummer Night’s Dream from local myths and superstitions.

The great Bard is said to have stayed at Clydach House when he stayed in the village- and was quoted as ‘the stranger who came looking for the house of many windows’ (which it still has to this day). What would have spurred him on to come looking for this place, we’ll never know, unless the legends of Cwm Pwca  (Hobgoblins’ Dingle - or Valley of Puck) were known further a field, perhaps. It has been suggested that his friend Richard Price, son of Sir John Price, of the Priory, Brecon, was the person who first made Shakespeare  aware of the Cambrian fairies and that when visiting his friend, he sojourned to ‘the Valley of Fairy Puck’ (The fairy Glen)- which became the principal machinery for his Midsummer Night’s Dream - supposedly penned as he sat in what is now known as Shakespeare’s Cave, in a dingle just above Cwm Pwca.

Cwm Pwca was where waters from the river Clydach mingled with waters from another stream - a place that filled people with dread, because of the malicious powers of some evil spirits believed to be residing there.

Cwm Pwca lies below Devil’s Bridge (the bridge can be accessed by walking down past the Drum and Monkey in Blackrock,  on through the subway under the Heads of the Valley Road, then continuing down towards the river). It is apparently called Devil’s Bridge because it looks as though the face of the devil himself is hewn into the rock below. The river runs through a narrow channel at this point and drops straight down into a swirling pool below, which is called ‘Pwll Cwn’ - or the Dog’s Pool. This dark and cavernous pool forms the centre of the valley called Cwm Pwca - and was where Shakespeare is thought to have visited and got his inspiration, if not his knowledge, of Puck, who he subsequently introduced into his Midsummer Night’s Dream.

So is the Pwca of Clydach and the ‘shrewd knavish sprite that frights the maidens of the villag’ry … at every turn’ one and the same? It would certainly seem so…
 

Powys Literary Links - William Shakespeare:


 A great deal of William Shakespeare's life is shrouded in mystery. In the parishes of Llandefalle and Bronllys, Breconshire legend has supplied the answer to one of the questions surrounding the playwright. Here, it is firmly believed that Shakespeare stayed at Trebarried around 1595.



Information provided by Powys County Archives:

The original house at Trebarried was the mansion of Bois, Lord of Trebois. All that can be seen of this are the remains of a moat in the field to the east of the house.

The present house, which Theophilus Jones says "rose from the ruins, and perhaps was partly composed of the materials of the old house, though not built on the same foundation" was built in the mid seventeenth century for William Parry or William ap Harry Vaughan, a descendent of Roger Vaughan of Bronllys (sometimes 'of Talgarth'), himself a natural son Sir Roger Vaughan of Tretower.

Whilst staying at Trebarried, Shakespeare is said to have visited the picturesque Clydach Gorge, near Abergavenny. Clydach was part of Breconshire at that time. Here, in a part of the gorge called the Fairy Glen, he is supposed to have written 'A Midsummer Night's Dream', which he intended for the celebrations at the wedding of a friend. There is a cave in the gorge still called 'Shakespeare's Cave', where he sat, so the story goes, to write his fantasy of fairies, star-crossed lovers and 'rude mechanicals'. The cave is one of many in the area explored by cavers.

In the sixteenth century, the gorge was wild and largely unspoilt, though evidence has been found that it was the site of the earliest iron workings in the world. Later, the Industrial Revolution was to bring more extensive exploitation of the natural resources lying hidden beneath the gorge, as can be seen from the 1880 Ordnance Survey map.

We shall probably never really know whether Shakespeare visited Trebarried and Clydach, or where he wrote 'A Midsummer Night's Dream', but it does no harm for us to indulge in a little fantasy, and there is the compelling evidence of the name of that cave...