Antiquity

Here you see High Street in Mitcheldean, Gloucestershire, United Kingdom, looking toward St. Micheal's and All Angel's church. Inside the church is a fifteenth century painting and brasses showing the original gravesite of Sir Thomas Baynham and his two wives, Jane and Alice. This is the origin in English history of the Baynham family, as they married into a Saxon family, de Dene. Somewhere in the piles of papers I have in my house is a copy of a short bit of family tree, showing the family of Geoffrey and Petronilla de Dene ("the Dane"), and as the generations pass from one generation to another, you ultimately pass to Raffe ap Enyon, who married into the family. I wonder sometimes how it was that this Welshman married into a wealthy Saxon family, whose home was the Dene Magna, which became Mitcheldean.

From there, I have a second copy of a family tree which begins with Thomas ap Enyon, whose name was changed to Baynham, as the old Welsh name was transformed into an English name forever. This is a common transformation from old Welsh names to new English names: Ap Rhys to Price, Ap Ian to Bain, etc.

The Baynhams were known for their connections to the Forest of Dean, a royal forest in the west of Gloucestershire, bordering on Wales. Beyond is Tintern Abbey, immortalized by Wordsworth in his poem. Further on is Cardiff, the capital of Wales and the largest city in the South of Wales. Beyond, on the coast, lies the port city of Swansea, birthplace of Dylan Thomas. Read "A Child's Christmas in Wales" and see the seaport in its Winter finery. It is the most poetic prose I know of.

That is my plan, anyway.

Someday, I will fly to London and take a train to Gloucester, where I will hear the choir in the great cathedral, just as Kate and I did when we heard them perform in St. Phillips Cathedral in Atlanta when Kate was very young. Perhaps, we will see the ghosts created by Beatrix Potter around the countryside near Gloucester, or hear the creak of the old wooden ships anchored in Bristol. Crossing the Severn, we might travel back in place and time to Mitcheldean. We might even stay at Baynham Farm, north of Mitcheldean. Here is an old picture of it: