Notebooks of Archdeacon Henry Thomas Payne

Powys Archives

(B/D/BM/A104)

Powys Archives holds three notebooks written by Henry Thomas Payne 1759-1832, who was a scholarly, cultured man with wide interests.  He was a historian and antiquarian and a life-long student of Welsh Antiquities and history, with a particular interest in them as they affected the county and churches of Breconshire.

He was a conscientious parish priest, active and resolute in the discharge of his duties as Rural Dean and Commissary-General, fearlessly insisting that the parishes should see to the proper repair of their churches and provide better and more adequate furnishings.

The most interesting notebook is the volume from which this image is taken.  At the beginning of his description of the parishes he gives, with few exceptions, pen-and-ink sketches of the churches.  He also gives family pedigrees, inscriptions on tombstones and mural tablets, sketches of effigies, churchyard crosses and so on.

Another notebook held by the Archives dates from 1807, and is written in the well-known clear and plain hand of Payne bearing the following title:  “Recollections of two excursions from Llanbedr to Ross with the navigation of the River Wye to Chepstow, and a walk to Persfield.  Returning by Newport, Caerphilly, Cardiff, Merthyr Tydfil and Brecknock, by Mary Payne”.  The journey began on 30 July 1807, and the party consisted of four ladies and two gentlemen.

The collection also contains a leather-bound sketchbook, which appears to have been compiled by Thomas Price (later known as Carnhuanawc) and Theophilus Jones in preparation for the publication of Volume 2 of the History of Brecknockshire in 1809.  The bulky eighty-page scrapbook contains inscriptions from tombs and mural tablets, coats of arms and mottos, sketches of memorial monuments, standing stones, camps, and barrows, with measurements.   Written alongside the sketches are engraved plate and figure numbers which closely relate to the position of the objects in the published version of the book. How the book came into the possession of Payne is unfortunately unknown.