Angharad - The Gardener and Once Nun

Life in the Convent

Nuns were usually recruited from rich families as there was the cost of a dowry when they became brides of Christ. Sometimes this dowry could be paid in goods.

Time spent in a Nunnery was not necessarily a happy one and there are many accounts of nuns rushing through their devotions in order to fill their time with the three D'sDresses, Dance and Dogs. Bishops were often found bemoaning the fact that some nuns even took their pet dogs to Church services.

Escape from the nunnery into the wider world was possible but came, as did everything, at a price.

Angharad's story...

Angharad is the daughter of William and Anwen from the nearby hamlet of Cog, where William is a cooper.

When she reached the tender age of 14 her father sent her to the convent at Ewenny, where she joined a silent order of nuns. Here she was expected to behave herself praying for the departed.

Unfortunately this was not what Angharad wanted! After much wailing and gnashing of teeth by her father who had to give the nuns a dozen fine barrels full of the sweetest apples to allow his daughter to leave. Back home in Cog she became adept at herb lore and gardening. These latter skills led her to tend the flower gardens of Sir William up at the manor house.

Many years later Angharad continues to live in Cog and look after the manorial flower gardens. She has three children, Luke and Abigail and the headstrong Llinos who at 18 is well past the age when she should be married and out from under her mother’s feet!

Although Llinos should be married and away, she takes a great part in looking after the younger children when her mother is up at the manor. Angharad has much to do as her husband was taken when the Great Mortality ravaged Cog over a year ago.

Every waking moment of the day she attempts to make up for her time in a silent order of nuns with constant chatter and a large degree of guilt means that when she is not looking after her family and the manorial gardens, she can be found working in Father Edwin's garden behind the Tithe barn.