LLANVIHANGEL-VECHAN (LLANFIHANGEL-FECHAN), a chapelry, forming the upper division of the parish of LLANDEVAILOGVACH, in the hundred of MERTHYR-CYNOG, union of BRECKNOCK and county of BRECKNOCK, SOUTH WALES, 5 miles (N. by W.) from Brecknock, on the road to Builth; and containing 200 inhabitants. The name of this place, signifying " St. Michael's the Lesser," is derived from the dedication of its church; but it is sometimes called " the Lower Chapel," to distinFuish it from the chapel of Dyfryn Honddii, situated in the parish of Merthyr-Cynog. It comprises the northern portion of the parish, and has the parish of Merthyr-Cynog on the north, that of Garthbrengy on the east, and the Yscir river on the west; the soil comprehends several varieties, and is suited to all kinds of agricultural produce. The village is situated on the left bank of the romantic river Honddfi, which is here crossed by a bridge, amid some well-wooded glens inclosed by lofty hills. Castle Madoc, the seat of Hugh Price, Esq., to whose father this estate was devised by his cousin, Miss Catherine Powell, by whose ancestors it had been possessed for ages, is one of the oldest family mansions in the county, and according to Mr. Jones, the historian of Brecknockshire, derives its name from its founder, Madoc ab Maenarch, brother to the unfortunate Bleddyn, Prince of Brycheiniog, whose dominions were seized and himself slain by the Normans under Bernard Newmarch. The plainly marked site of this original edifice, and a mount forming that of the keep, are still to be seen near the present mansion, which was built in the year 1588, as appears by an inscription over the entrance, but has been frequently altered, and has undergone a thorough repair. From a lofty hill above it, called Alltarnog, in the adjacent parish of Merthyr-Cynog, is obtained a delightful view of the most beautiful part of the Vale of Honddfi, with the sinuous course of its rapid river, terminated by the magnificent chain of mountains, in which rise pre-eminent the Brecknockshire Beacons. The chapelry contains a small woollen manufactory and a tucking-mill, in each of which two hands are employed. The living is a perpetual curacy, endowed with £1000 royal bounty, and in the patronage of the. Rector of Llandevailog- Vich; net income, £65. The chapel, dedicated to St. Michael, is supposed to have been originally erected for the use of the family at Castle Madoc, who contributed largely to the rebuilding of it, about the commencement of the present century; it is about 50 feet long and 30 wide, and contains a neat marble tablet to the memory of Miss Catherine Powell, and that of her father, Charles Powell, Esq. There is a place of worship for Independents; also a Sunday school, in which 75 males and females are instructed gratuitously by Calvinistic Methodists. Ann Bowen, in 1684, bequeathed a small rent- charge of Xl. 4., on a farm called Cwm Bachlyn; and Miss Catherine Powell, who died in 1798, charged the estate of Castle Madoc with the payment of forty shillings per annum to the poor of the chapelry. On the bill of Alltarnog are the remains of a British encampment, nearly of an oval form, and about two hundred yards in circumference, originally defended on the north by three ramparts, two of which are now almost levelled, and on the south by the precipitousness of the elevation. Thomas Powell, of Castle Madoc, aocording to the Cambrian Biography, was a poet who flourished between the years 1580 and 1620; but his writings are little known. The Rev. Hugh Price, rector of Rettendon and Little Ilford, in the county of Essex, for many years examining chaplain to Bishop Warburton, and distinguished no less for his literary attainments than for his upright and amiable character, died, in 1803, at Castle Madoc, of which he had 'been for many years proprietor, and lies buried in the cemetery attached to the mother church of Llandevailog,-Wich.