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Llanfyllin b&b, guesthouse and hotel accommodation

Visit Llanfyllin and the surrounding villages and stay in bed & breakfast accommodation:

Llanfyllin, Powys. The industrious Christopher Saxton, making his notes for the mapping of the counties of Britain to be “performed” and published in 1610, writes of it as Lan Vethlin, or Vethlius' Church, a “little mercate town”, and gives it an imperial ancestry. “That Mediolanum, a towne of the Ordovices, which both Antonine the Emperor and Ptolomee spoke, stood in this shire [of Montgomery] I am in a manner perswaded upon probabilitie. The footings whereof I have sought after with all diligence but little or nothing have I found of it; for Time consumeth the very carcasses even of cities. Yet if we may ground any conjecture on the situation, seeing the townes which Antonine placeth on either side be so well knowen, to wit, Bonium now Bangor by Dee on the one side, and Rutunium now Rowton Castle on the other side . . . the lines of position, if I may so term them. . .do cut one another betweene Matrafall and Lan Vethlin and show demonstratively the site of our Mediolanum”.

Lan Vethlin, he argues, comes very close in name to Mediolanum. “For of Methlin, by propriety of the British tongue, is made Vethlin, like as of Caer Marden is come Caer Verden and of Ar-mon, Arvon”. This is a reference to the Welsh practice of “mutation”, by which, according to strict rules, certain consonants are reduced to others so that the tongue can run more easily over the succession of words. And Methlin, which he therefore suggests was the true form of Vethlin, did not, to his way of thinking, “more jarre and disagree in sound from Mediolanum” than the parallel examples of Milano in Italy or Le Million in France, which no one ever doubted were originally known as Mediolanum. He goes on to state that the mean¬ing of the Latin name Mediolanum had been found to be “in the mids betweene Lanas or little rivers”, and his Lan Vethlin was indeed sited upon a plain between two riverets.

Something in this argument may belong to the form of archaeological deduction, by no means dead today, that Shakespeare attributed to his Fluellen: “There is a river in Macedonia, and there is a river in Monmouth”. We now know that Mediolanum was in Cheshire. What Saxton was looking for was a Mediomanum. But Saxton lends some strength to his supposition by pointing out that “Matrafall” (Mathrafal), the seat of the early Princes of Powys, was close at hand and that Machynlleth itself was “haply” that which the Romans called Maglona, where, he says. under the General of Britain in the time of the Emperor Theodosius the Younger the captain of the regiment of the Solenses lay in garrison to keep under the mountaineers. Nothing has yet been found to give Saxton any support; but his deductions are worth considering, as they concern one of the mysteries perplexing modern research. The Antonine Itinerary, to which he refers. is a detailed document, published in the later years of the Empire and setting out the road-system of Roman Britain and the towns, supply depots, and military stations that they serviced. Between Chester and Wroxeter there is considerable doubt about the precise siting of many of the positions set out in the list, although distances in Roman miles are carefully allocated to the routes between one place and the next. Saxton may in time be proved right, even if for the wrong reasoning.

In later centuries, Llanfyllin had a reputation for its ale and ale-drinking. “Old ale fills Llanfyllin with young widows” was a phrase often quoted. The town is a centre from which the Pistyll Rhaeadr — one of the great waterfalls of Wales, once counted as one of its Seven Wonders— and Lake Vyrnwy can be reached.

Nearby towns: Bala, Llanfair Caereinion, Llanrheadr ym Mochnant, Oswestry, Welshpool

Nearby villages: Arddleen, Buttington, Dolanog, Guilsfield, Hirnant, Llanerfyl, Llanfechain, Llangadwaladr, Llangedwyn, Llangyniew, Llangynog, Llansantffraid, Llansantffraid ym Mechain, Llansilin, Llanyblodwel, Llanyblodwel, Llanymynech, Llanynog, Meifod, Pennant-Melangell, Penybontfawr, Pont Newydd, Pontrobert, Pool Quay, Trefonen

Have you decided to visit Llanfyllin or the surrounding villages? Please look above for somewhere to stay in:

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• a Llanfyllin self-catering establishment, or
• other Llanfyllin accommodation

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Find availability in a Llanfyllin bed and breakfast, also known as B&B or b and b, guesthouse, small hotel, self-catering or other accommodation.