Qualla: Abergwili https://qualla.com/abergwili en-us © 2026 Bendyline Wed, 08 Jul 2026 02:40:13 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/h/z/abergwili-wp/hero-small.webp Qualla: Abergwili https://qualla.com/abergwili Abergwili: Introduction https://qualla.com/abergwili/ Photo credit Alan Harris, CC BY-SA 2.0. In 1567 a small group of men sitting in a former college of priests on the bank of the Towy finished a piece of work that would help keep an entire language alive. Their building still stands, a few miles east of Carmarthen, ringed by gardens and an oxbow lake the river left behind when it shifted course. The village around it is called Abergwili, named for the place where the little River Gwili spills into the Towy. Most travellers passing through on the A40 do not notice it. The Bishops of St Davids noticed. They lived here for more than four hundred years.

Read more: Abergwili on Qualla

Image: Alan Harris | CC BY-SA 2.0

]]> Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/h/z/abergwili-wp/gchz-abergwili-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full Abergwili: The Palace by the River https://qualla.com/abergwili/ Photo credit Nilfanion, CC BY-SA 4.0. The first building on the site went up between 1283 and 1291, when Thomas Bek was Bishop of St Davids and a college of priests was established here. In 1542, Bishop William Barlow decided the diocese needed a more comfortable seat than the windswept clifftop at St Davids itself. ...

Read more: Abergwili on Qualla

Image: Nilfanion | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/h/z/abergwili-wp/gchz-abergwili-the-palace-by-the-river.mp3 0:06 2 full Abergwili: The Book That Saved a Language https://qualla.com/abergwili/ Photo credit Col Ford and Natasha de Vere, CC BY 2.0. In 1563 Parliament ordered the Welsh and Hereford bishops to produce a translation of the Bible, the Book of Common Prayer, and the sacraments in Welsh by 1 March 1567. The work fell to William Salesbury, a Renaissance scholar with a gift for languages, and to Bishop Richard Davi...

Read more: Abergwili on Qualla

Image: Col Ford and Natasha de Vere | CC BY 2.0

]]> Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/h/z/abergwili-wp/gchz-abergwili-the-book-that-saved-a-language.mp3 0:06 3 full Abergwili: Merlin's Hill https://qualla.com/abergwili/ Photo credit Colin Pyle, CC BY-SA 2.0. Just outside the village rises a long whaleback ridge crowned with the remains of an Iron Age hillfort. Locals know it as Merlin's Hill, Bryn Myrddin in Welsh. The legend, recorded in medieval Welsh tradition and embroidered ever since, holds that this is where Merlin is buried, ...

Read more: Abergwili on Qualla

Image: Colin Pyle | CC BY-SA 2.0

]]> Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/h/z/abergwili-wp/gchz-abergwili-merlins-hill.mp3 0:06 4 full Abergwili: The Gwili Line https://qualla.com/abergwili/ Photo credit Gareth James, CC BY-SA 2.0. Until the great railway closures of the 1960s, Abergwili sat on the line running north from Carmarthen up the valley toward Aberystwyth. The station closed and most of the track came up, but a short stretch survived. Today the Gwili Railway, a volunteer-run heritage line, brings ...

Read more: Abergwili on Qualla

Image: Gareth James | CC BY-SA 2.0

]]> Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/h/z/abergwili-wp/gchz-abergwili-the-gwili-line.mp3 0:06 5 full Abergwili: A Quiet Inheritance https://qualla.com/abergwili/ Photo credit Jaggery, CC BY-SA 2.0. Notable people who died here include Alice Abadam, the Welsh suffragette and orator who spent her later years in the village before her death in 1940, and two consecutive bishops of St Davids, Basil Jones and John Owen. The Celtic cross in the churchyard remembers the village's d...

Read more: Abergwili on Qualla

Image: Jaggery | CC BY-SA 2.0

]]> Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/h/z/abergwili-wp/gchz-abergwili-a-quiet-inheritance.mp3 0:06 6 full