Joseph Harries and the building of Glan-y-Mor

The wizard Joseph Harries was born in 1830 and lived during his youthful years at Werndew -- the family farm on the mountainside above Dinas. In 1859 he was forced to move out when his half brother inherited the property, and he built a house on the main Newport-Fishguard road at the bottom end of the Werndew driveway.   This was planned to be the residence for himself and his widowed mother, and she probably paid for most of the work.  The building of the house took almost ten years - maybe because cash was tight. 

Two men were employed on building the house.  One of them recorded that one day the supply of building stones ran out.  Joseph Harries was unconcerned, and told the builders that there was nothing to worry about.  Sure enough, next morning when the men turned up for work "there were stones aplenty".   How did they get there?  Nobody else could have delivered them overnight, and the builders were quite convinced that some mysterious power had been invoked by the wizard in order to bring them in and stack them ready for use.........

Willian Beddow, one of the builders, made a deposition to the Rector of Dinas on 28 March 1892 about Joseph Harries, who had died in 1890.   He claimed that around 1874 he had been engaged to build a wall at Glan-y-Mor.  One day he and a local miller were called in by Joseph Harries to look at a mirror placed on the kitchen table.  He then said he would go upstairs and stamp his foot on the floorboards -- at which point the men were required to look into the mirror. They did as they were bidden, and saw David Harries of Werndew (Joseph's half brother) and Ebenezer Davies of Ffynnonofi (a well-known local rascal).  

They gave the names to Joseph when he came downstairs, upon which he nodded and said no more.  It was known that the wizard used the mirror in order to find the names of those who had committed various crimes -- it was used to find the name of the man who shot a horse belonging to a local farmer, and also the name of the person who had stolen jewels belonging to a lady belonging to the Pembrokeshire gentry.