Cardigan For Men

The last duel in Wales took place at Dan-warin fields between Llandyfyriog and Adpar in Cardiganshire on Saturday Sept. 10th 1814. (Duelling became illegal in 1844.) It all started in the Old Salutation Inn, a popular hostelry overlooking the river Teifi and the bridge in Adpar where Thomas Heslop, a West Indian gentleman, then living at Carmarthen, was staying. He and others had been invited to go on a partridge shoot by John Beynon, a local solicitor of Llwyncadfor Farm near Llandyfriog on Thursday September 8th 1814. That evening after the shoot John Beynon invited thirty six year old Thomas Heslop, together with others to spend an evening at the Old Salutation, to dine and drink. A dispute arose on the subject of the day's shooting. Heslop claimed that he had had a very bad days sport, because he not been allowed to shoot when and where he pleased. He blamed the Cardigan gentlemen (Cardis) present. Beynon tried to diffuse this outburst by making derogatory remarks about the barmaid. This inflamed Heslop, as he fancied the barmaid, and objected strongly to John Beynon's coarse comments and turned round and called the solicitor a damned villain and scoundrel and challenged him to a duel. John Beynon accepted the challenge and two days later in the early morning of Saturday Sep-tember 10th the two men, together with their seconds, John Walters and James Hughes and also a surgeon, John Williams, met in Dan-warin fields through which ran a stream. Standing one on either ...