BRECKNOC K Last week 1 visited what must be the
nearest wholly un- spoiled country to London. This was the remote Welsh county of Brecknock, a kingdom in itself, of richly wooded valleys surrounded by mountains, and with the cathedral town of Brecon as its capital. I stood in the churchyard of Llanfilo, where the little whitewashed church has a glorious late- medimval screen. I could, hear nothing but footsteps, whisper- ing trees, birdsong and the munching of cows. There was not even a motor-bike popping in the distance nor any drone .of car or aeroplane. The town of Brecon, among steeply wooded hills, has a stately cathedral, large and well-restored, full of texture, and lit inside by dramatic gradations of light from coloured windows. It was a holy place. Unfortunately, the unrivalled view of the Brecon Beacons from the old buildings of the close has been ruined by a hideous modern villa of red brick. Also in Brecon is Christ College, a Church of Wales public school which has been a school since before the Refor- mation. The old Early English chapel has an east window of three large figures : Our Lord on the Cross, with Our Lady and St. John either side. When I first saw this I thought it was a famous piece of early-mediaeval work of which I had' never heard. Then I looked again and noticed the creamy pinks and whites of which the figures were made and the way the leading was used to pick out the structure of the bodies, and decided that an original modern artist, Picasso for instance, had unexpectedly done a stained-glass window here. But the window turned out to be mid-Victorian and to have been designed by P. Seddon, the only architect member of the original Pre-Raphaelitehrottierhood.
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