Be upstanding...

This remarkably solid ruin stands right by the road near Bontnewydd, Meirionydd. A plaque set into the long wall (just visible to the right of the picture) reads:
TY CROES ISAF
Cartref IEUAN GWYNEDD (Evan Jones)
Ganwyd ym Mryntorian, Rhydymain
Bu farw yng Nghaerdydd a'i gladdu yn Y Groeswen
Safodd dros Grist a thros ein Cenedl
1820-1852

Tr: Lower Cross House; home of Ieuan Gwynedd (Evan Jones); born in Bryntorian, Rhydymain; died in Cardiff and buried in Y Groeswen; he stood for Christ and for our country; 1820-1852

Evan Jones packed a lot into his short life, both successes and failures, as a teacher, preacher, writer, publisher and family man. He left school at 16 and immediately began trying unsuccessfully to set up schools of his own. At 19 he was appointed an assistant master at a school at Bangor, and at 20 became minister of a church in Shropshire. He then studied four years at Brecon College, following which he was ordained as an independent minister in Tredegar, and married his first wife, who died 18 months later (as did their only child). He then resigned the post at Tredegar owing to his own ill-health (and also declined the offer to be secretary of the National Temperance Association), and moved to edit a journal in Cardiff. He fell out with the publisher and moved to London, where he worked on at least three magazines, and married again. Ill-health again prompted a return to Cardiff, where he edited several more journals, including one belonging to Lady Llanover. Two years later, aged 31, he died.

Evan Jones was a powerful advocate for the temperance movement, and also wrote poetry (Ieuan Gwynedd was his bardic name), but was best known and respected for his defence of Welsh non-conformism and for taking on in public the authors of the notorious 'Blue Books' by the Education Commissioners of 1847, an attack on Welsh education, language, culture and morals which still stings today. The causes he stood for may seem old-fashioned, even Quixotic, but his passion, energy and determination are of enduring value, like these ruined walls.

A couple more in my blipfolio.