—“An Archaeological Discourse on the Antiquities, Natural and Historical, of the Isle of Anglesey, the Antient Seat of the British Druids.”
£65 (plus £8 post/packing within UK: this is a heavy book!)
Henry Rowlands (1655-1723) was born on Anglesey at Llanedwen and became rector of Llanidan Old Church. He wrote about farming practice in ‘Idea Agriculturæ’ and in 1710 produced ‘Antiquitates Parochiales’ about the ancient monuments of the locality. His best known work was ‘Mona Antiqua Restaurata’ (1723)—literally ‘Ancient Anglesey restored’—in which he mistakenly linked the island’s Bronze Age sites with the Druids, the priests and lawgivers of the ancient Celts. This fanciful anachronism, compounded by the English antiquarian William Stukeley, was seized upon in Victorian times and still persists today (…see the 2008 edition of the County Council’s tourism brochure!). However Rowlands does deserve credit for focussing attention on the island’s ancient sites.
Limited edition. Page size 200mm wide x 258mm high; a total of 428 pages
including all the illustrations, appendices and an index.
The volume is handsomely casebound, with the title gold-blocked
on a black leather spine label, and is protected by a sturdy slipcase.
See also Llyfrau Magma’s reissue of the 1775 History of the Island of Anglesey, described by its publisher as ‘A Supplement to Rowlands’s Mona Antiqua Restaurata’.