About

The village of Pontrhydfendigaid  is close to the 12th century monastery ruins of Strata Florida, once one of Europe’s most significant Cistercian monasteries and where archaeological digs are now revealing a much bigger site than originally imagined. It is reputedly the burial site of Dafydd ap Gwilym, one of the great medieval Welsh poets.

An Iron Age hillfort known as Pen y Bannau overlooks the Starta Florida abbey's ruins. To the south lies another hillfort, known as Gilfach y Dwn Fawr. The Cistercian monks who came to the valley to establish the monastic site of Strata Florida and developed sheep farming and mining across a huge area of land across the Cambrian Mountains.

At the heart of Pontrhydfendigaid - 'the bridge of the blessed ford' (known locally as ‘Bont’) is a narrow hump backed bridge across the river Teifi, whose source is about 5 miles away in the hills, at Teifi Pools.

Rows of miners cottages, now painted in a variety of pretty colours remind visitors of the past industry of the area. There are remains of mines dotted across the hillside, and archaeology is beginning to reveal that the Cistercian monks were also exploiting the mineral wealth of the hills around them.

Above Pontrhydfendigaid, on the road towards Devil's Bridge is Ffair Rhos, once the site of a fair and an important crossroads of a north-south route and an east-west route that passes over the Cambrian mountains.

STRATA FLORIDA ABBEY
The abbey became an important cultural centre, where monks recorded Welsh history and copied manuscripts of poems and the heroic tales of Welsh mythology.  Sometimes referred to as the 'Westminster of Wales' the abbey suffered slighting by English kings before Henry VIII finally dissolved the monasteries. the manuscripts have survived, now in the safe keeping of the National Library of Wales in Aberystwyth, along with the Nanteos Cup, which also came from Strata Florida, where it was venerated as perhaps being a remnant of the Holy Grail.