All About History Books

The Chronicle of Geoffrey le Baker of Swinbroke. Baker was a secular clerk from Swinbroke, now Swinbrook, an Oxfordshire village two miles east of Burford. His Chronicle describes the events of the period 1303-1356: Gaveston, Bannockburn, Boroughbridge, the murder of King Edward II, the Scottish Wars, Sluys, Crécy, the Black Death, Winchelsea and Poitiers. To quote Herbert Bruce 'it possesses a vigorous and characteristic style, and its value for particular events between 1303 and 1356 has been recognised by its editor and by subsequent writers'. The book provides remarkable detail about the events it describes. Baker's text has been augmented with hundreds of notes, including extracts from other contemporary chronicles, such as the Annales Londonienses, Annales Paulini, Murimuth, Lanercost, Avesbury, Guisborough and Froissart to enrich the reader's understanding. The translation takes as its source the 'Chronicon Galfridi le Baker de Swynebroke' published in 1889, edited by Edward Maunde Thompson. Available at Amazon in eBook and Paperback.

Trefor Burial Chamber, Beaumaris, Anglesey, North-West Wales aka Gwynedd, British Isles [Map]

Trefor Burial Chamber is in Beaumaris, Anglesey, Prehistoric Anglesey Burial Chambers.

Archaeological Journal Volume 3 Page 39-44. A large erect cromlech occurs at Llugwy, and more than one fallen cromlech on the neighbouring elevated lands: under the former human bones have been lately found. A double cromlech, thrown down since 1800, is to be seen at Trefor [Map]; one is near Holyhead, and there are several others.

In all these cases the cromlechs are composed of stones found in their immediate neighbourhood; thus, those at Plas Newydd, Bodowyr, and one at Llanidan, are of limestone rock found there in situ: those at Llanfaelog and Presaddfed are of the peculiar porphyritic breccia which accompanies the schistose formation of those districts. The cromlechs at Llugwy and in its vicinity are of limestone, and at Trefor [Map] of chloritic schist, thus affording the inference that they could not have been brought from any considerable distance. The immense rocks at Hên Bias are of the limestone of that spot, on which indeed they stand.

Archaeological Journal Volume 28 1871 Pages 97-108. 11. Trefor [Map], or Trevawr, Llansadwrn par. (E).

David Thomas, in his list of cromlechau, mentions one at "Trefor." Cambr. Reg. for 1796, vol. ii. p. 288. In Gough's additions to Camden's Britannia, vol. iii. p. 201, it is stated that there is at this place "a great rude cromlech, and ruins of another." The Rev. J. Lloyd noticed them also in his MS. collections, published by his daughter Angharad, in her History of Mona, p. 297. "On a tenement called Trevawr in this parish (Llansadwrn) there are two cromlechau; one is a large stone mounted high upon four pillars, its inclination westward; in length it is 9 ft. and 8 ft. in breadth. Near it, and upon the same carnedd, is another, supported only by two stones, with great inclination northward." (This cromlech fell down in 1825. Note, ibid.) Angharad, in the account of the great cromlech at Plas Newydd, p. 243, observes that "another double cromlech, not less extraordinary, is near a house called Trevor, about 2½ miles from Beaumaris, in the road to Plasgwyn. The only material difference between this cromlech and the former is that the second or inferior altar is placed a little further off from its lower end, and that its top is somewhat gibbous," so that, as in the "Giant's Coit," in Cornwall, it is very difficult to stand upon it. Mr. Longueville Jones states that the Trefor cromlech was thrown down a few years since by the tenant, as being "superstitious." Arch. Cambr. N. S., vol. v. p. 205. See also his Memoir on Cromlechs Extant in Anglesey, Arch. Journ., vol. iii. p. 43.