| Description | This series of papers forms the largest single unit in the collection.
Nowhere is the origin of the Porth yr Aur collection more clearly emphasised than in this section, for by contrast with the more usual collections of land documents the majority of these papers are either attested copies of original documents or draft copies incidental to the creation of original documents.
Every conceivable type of deed bearing upon the devolution of land will be met here, and while the majority of them fall within the lifetime of Hugh Ellis and John Evans, original deeds or copies of them for a much earlier period are very frequent.
They vary in number in respect of each individual estate not only according to the extent of the estate but also according to the degree of intimacy of John Evans and his predecessor in the concerns of the estate. In the case of some of them they were only called in when the exigencies of the devolution of the property demanded it, while in others again John Evans's position, to all intents and purposes, was of administrator. In these latter cases both the number and the greater variety of the documents call for grouping, and where it happens so a brief resume of the contents will be given, though it may answer some purpose to state that they consist of the originals, or copies, or draft copies of such deeds as conveyances, puchase deeds, mortgage deeds and assignments, surrenders, leases and releases, bonds and agreements, marriage settlements, wills, abstracts of titles and the very frequent recovery deeds. |