e of a
grammar-school, but in 1841 the collegiate body was dissolved, and its
revenues, then amounting to about L8000 a year, were transferred to the
ecclesiastical commissioners. In 1853 Henry VIII.'s charter was
repealed, and under a chancery scheme adopted two years later, L1200 a
year was appropriated for the school. New school buildings were erected
at a cost of about L10,000 in 1862, and these were enlarged at a cost of
about L5000 in 1880. The chancel of the old Dominican chapel, dating
from the 13th century, was restored in 1864, and is now the school
chapel. There is also a Congregationalist theological college, built in
1869 at a cost of L12,000, and now affiliated with the university of
Wales. The other chief buildings of the town are the shire hall built in
1842 in the Doric style from designs by T.H. Wyatt; the Guildhall; the
barracks, which are the headquarters of two battalions of the South
Wales Borderers; the county infirmary founded in 1832; and the prison
(in Llanfaes) for the counties of Brecon and Radnor. There is a bronze
statue of the duke of Wellington (erected in 1854) by John Evan Thomas,
a native of the town. The town commands a magnificent view of the
Brecknock Beacons, and is noted for its promenades on the banks of the
Usk, and in the priory groves. Brecon is favourably known as a fishing
centre, and there is also boating on the Usk and the canal. There are
several houses of interest, notably the Priory and Dr Awbrey's residence
(now called Buckingham House), both built about the middle of the 16th
century, but the finest specimen is Newton (about a mile out, near
Llanfaes) built in 1582 by Sir John Games (a descendant of Sir David
Gam), but now a farmhouse. The "Shoulder of Mutton" Inn, now known as
the "Siddons Wine Vaults," was the birthplace in 1755 of Mrs Siddons.

The name Brecknock is an anglicized form of Brycheiniog, the Welsh name
of the territory of Brychan (whence the alternative form of Brecon), a
Goidelic chieftain, who gained possession of the Usk valley in the 5th
century. The Welsh name of the town, on the other hand, has always been
Aber-Honddu (the estuary of the Honddu). There is no evidence of any
settlement on the site of the present town prior to about 1092, when
Bernard Newmarch, after defeating Bleddin ab Maenarch, built here a
castle which he made his residence and the chief stronghold of his new
lordship. For this purpose he utilized what remained of the materials