IN ANCIENT TIMES
In addition, it is known that there was a great monastic movement within the Gallic Church of those days, and when the early Gallic missionaries came to Wales they thus brought with them a Christianity which was highly monastic in character.
This monastic form of the Christian faith had originated in the Egyptian desert in the third century. Thence it had spread through Italy and Spain to Gaul and now, through the disciples of Saint Martin of Tours, it came to Wales and west Britain.
Immigration from Ireland.
However, the story of how Christianity came to the Fochriw area cannot be fully told unless we refer to the influx of Irish immigrants about the beginning of the fifth century.
They brought with them a special form of writing known as " Ogham ". If the individuals recorded on their Ogham stones were not already Christian when they came into south Wales they certainly became so after their entry. It would appear, therefore, that the Christian missionaries arriving from Gaul and the contemporary Irish settlers in south Wales came into close cultural contact with each other.
Capel Gwladys
Gwladys was one of the many daughters of Brychan, the ruler of Brycheiniog. Her sister was Tydfil, the saint associated with the first Christian settlement at Merthyr Tydfil. Gwladys established her little chapel on Gelligaer Common and the land in the vicinity became to be known as "Tir Gwladys".
The site of the chapel is located on the spur of the open moorland which elbows out to the mountain road which leads from Bargoed before it joins Heol Adam, the old Roman roadway that climbs the ridge to Fochriw. It was discovered in 1906 when the local Council Authority was making a survey of the area for a suitable piece of ground to be used as a cemetery.
After a stone slab, bearing a decorative Celtic wheel cross, had been discovered there, the area was declared to be consecrated ground and the stone was removed for safety to Gelligaer Church. A low stone wall, one foot high, was built around the perimeter of the site, forming a rectangle 45 by 24 feet. Eventually, the remains of a circular wall were detected around the site at a distance of 27 yards from it. These outer circular wall traces suggest that the area had been a sacred enclosure of some magnitude and importance in far-off times.
The story of Princess is quite a romantic one. Her admirer, Gwynllyw Filwr (or Farfog), is said to have abducted her, with the help of 300 of his men, from her father's court at Talgarth, after his envoys requesting her hand in marriage were sent away by her father King Brychan Brycheiniog. Gwynllyw brought her to Boch Riw Carn, now Fochriw, where they settled down at their hillside home.
The insensed, Brychan followed in hot persuit, and in the chase killed about 200 of Gwynllyw's band. When Gwynllyw and Gwladys arrived at Boch Rhiw Carn, with Brychan still in pursuit,