AN Aberystwyth man claims a former Cambrian News editor influenced the Nanteos Cup Holy Grail legend.

Ian Pegler made the discovery early in 2016 whilst looking through a box of guidebooks in the National Library of Wales.

The guidebook, called Aberystwyth – What to see and how to see it, contains the following passage: “Through Trefechan and out by the Penparke road, shown on the plan, to the south turnpike-gate, where the middle road leads to Nanteos, the Nightingale’s brook.

“At the mansion is kept the Tregaron Healing Cup which bears a resemblance to the mysterious Holy Grail described by Tennyson in his ‘Idyls [sic] of the King’.

“It is said to have been a chalice made from the wood of the Cross and to have come into the possession of the Nanteos family from the monks of Strata Florida Abbey.”

The guide was originally written in 1879 by William Robert Hall (seen left), who was associate editor of the Cambrian News.

Ian also discovered that W R Hall was from Somerset and had Glastonbury ancestry.

“It can also be shown that W R Hall had direct contact with Ethelwyn Mary Amery, an English visitor to Nanteos in the early 1900s who penned a book called Sought and Found, which was the first full-blown storybook about the Nanteos Cup being the Holy Grail,” he said.

Hall was a pioneer of Aberystwyth tourism in the Victorian era and directly involved with a society that aimed to promote Aberystwyth to the West Midlands and further afield.

“The passage concerning the Cup in W R Hall’s guide is the earliest text I have so far been able to find which links the Nanteos Cup with the Holy Grail,” said Ian. “It predates Amery’s book by more than a quarter of a century.”

Do you have old photos or memories you’d like to share? Write to Julie McNicholls Vale at [email protected] or Timewatch, Cambrian News, 7 Aberystwyth Science Park, Aberystwyth SY23 3AH