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Object No 3 is a Communion Flagon, dating from 1652, presented to the College of Christ of Brecknock by Bishop William Lucy, Bishop of St Davids 1660-1677.
In our sequence of 41 Objects, the flagon represents a turbulent period in the history of the school site, successfully brought to a close as a result of a generous Bishop’s benefaction.
Photo credit: Christ College Archive. 2024.
We know very little about the College of Christ at Brecknock in the C16 and C17. Though it is possible to trace many of the Masters through clerical records and there are references to some pupils' names in records held elsewhere, there is no register of pupils. We know the curriculum would essentially have been the same as in other similar schools, with an emphasis on the teaching of Latin grammar, and that teaching at the College of Christ at Brecknock also specifically included Divinity. We also know that, while there was a small section for the teaching of basic reading, writing and arithmetic to younger children, the main purpose of the College was to lead older boys to ordination into the Clergy.
An official visit to the College reported favourably on its operation in 1547, so it seems to have started well. However, the success of Henry’s foundation depended on the financial commitment of the twenty-two prebendaries who had transferred from Abergwili. Their contributions, which were needed to fund a Grammar master, a lecturer in Theology and an usher, and the upkeep and education of 20 scholars, were erratic and often inadequate.
The success of Henry’s foundation also depended on the willingness of the Bishops of St Davids to maintain an interest in the school and its buildings. On such an insecure footing the gradual decline of Henry’s foundation was inevitable in the coming centuries.
Photo. Roger Thomas's legacy: the roofless nave, now Chapel Yard. c1910. Christ College Archive.
While the College of Christ at Brecknock survived and occasionally thrived, one of its most turbulent times was as a result of the Civil War.
When Cromwell took control of the country during the Commonwealth, all the lands and property of St Davids were seized by Parliament. The property of the College of Christ at Brecknock ended up in the hands of the Roger Thomas, who had made himself a formidable power in Brecon by getting a “Patent that no men in the Towne should Brew any malt Drinke but himself”.
Fearful that he would lose everything when a king was restored to the throne, he tried to make as much money from the site as quickly as he could. He is said to have ripped the lead from the roof, sold the bell and made money from “the very gravestones of the dead”. Roger Thomas was even responsible for the destruction of the roof of the original nave of the friary church, now Chapel Yard.
In June 1660, with the restoration of the monarch a certainty, Roger Thomas was besieged on the property by his enemies. He tried to escape by clambering onto a wall but he fell to the ground, landed on a stone and broke his back. Roger Thomas died three days later in Brecon gaol, then in Brecon Castle. It was a fittingly dramatic end for the man who had single-handedly decimated the ancient friary buildings.
Photo credit: Paul K Edgley for Christ College Archive.
The newly installed Bishop of St Davids, William Lucy, was horrified by the destruction brought about by Roger Thomas. He spent a considerable sum on the restoration of the College buildings and, under his instruction, the work of rebuilding the Chapel was completed in 1666. He made the decision to devote his money to restoring the chancel, which is what we now know as ‘the Chapel’, leaving the nave roofless. Only traces of windows in Chapel Yard reveal that the Chapel was once considerably larger than it is today.
Brecon became the regular residence of Bishop Lucy. When he died in his eighty-sixth year in 1677, he was buried in the Chapel. His memorial can be seen on the wall to the left of the door into Chapel.
More striking than Bishop Lucy’s unassuming memorial in the Antechapel is the nearby funerary sculpture by Stanton (1698). It features the recumbent figure of Bishop William Lucy’s son, Richard, and Richard’s wife, Florence, leaning beside him. Standing to the side of them is the statue of their son, Gam.
Bishop Lucy certainly deserves his foremost place among the names associated with the history of Christ College but his name is known to generations of pupils because of variations on the theme of Bishop Lucy’s Ghost.
Many of the ghost stories relating to Bishop Lucy feature a missing hand - a hand which is actually missing from the statue of his grandson, Gam, the bewigged figure in the antechapel who is often mistaken for Bishop Lucy himself.
Mark Nolan Powell (SHB 1960-66) recalls an incident that captures the fear instilled into the hearts of young boys by stories of Bishop Lucy's ghost.
It was a dark and stormy night, really, and we were doing our prep up in the Library. Looking outside from there, the Chapel forecourt was pitch black and there were no lights on in the Chapel itself. But you could just see the silhouette of the chapel bell tower against the swirling orange mist of the streetlights beyond.
As we huddled over our books, at a time when there were not any chapel activities scheduled, suddenly the chapel bell started ringing. At first no one took any notice, but it kept going. The bell was near to the Library window so it was loud and impossible to ignore. Someone casually went over to the window to take a look, and there was a stifled gasp as the report came back, "There's no one there. The bell's ringing but the Chapel's all dark. It must be the ghost of Bishop Lucy!”
This remark referenced two aspects of the school's history and folk lore. Firstly, one of the figurative marble monuments located in the Antechapel was of Bishop Lucy, a former cleric of good repute whose piercing stony stare led us to imagine that he really might have some other-worldly knowledge of what went on in the chapel pews when we were meant to be paying attention to the service.
Secondly, his ghost was supposed to manifest itself on various but always unexpected occasions. So this announcement was greeted partly by cynical teenage disbelief, but also by a migration to the windows overlooking the Chapel to see for ourselves. We stared, and we saw. "Whoa, it's true! No lights! That's very weird! It really is the ghost of Bishop Lucy!"
The speculation and the noise level grew in the Library, and the bell kept tolling. And then quite suddenly it stopped.
In the Chapel yard down below there were lights, people, and voices - but no white spectres or bone-chilling howls. As the tension in the library began to subside, word reached us that it was nothing to be concerned about. Mr Lewis Jones a music teacher had gone into the Chapel to get something from the organ loft, and he had inadvertently become locked inside. Being unable to get the Chapel door open again, and not being able to attract anyone's attention by shouting, he had quite sensibly decided to draw attention to his plight by pulling on the bell rope.
But the chapel was dark. Why were there no lights inside? Oh yes, of course, because Mr Lewis Jones was blind.
Background image. Christ College Chapel. 1950s. Christ College Archive. From the A R Morton Collection.
