File NLW MS 12693B. - John Leland's 'Itinerary through Wales',

A small, quarto volume (86 ff., with ff. 3 verso, 8 verso, II, 14 verso, 15, 16, 24 verso, 86 verso, blank), containing a variant copy of the section or volume (No. 5) of John Leland's manuscript account of his 'Itinerary', which deals largely with his travels through parts of Wales. The whole volume is reputedly in the hand of Sir Simon Archer (Warwickshire antiquary), but ff. 4-24 are written in a much more cramped, irregular style than the remainder of the work, and they contain a number of corrections, particularly of place-names. A notable omission from the present text are the notes on Carmarthenshire, Pembrokeshire, arid part of Shropshire, which appear in the original account [see Hearne: op. Cit., pp. 21-31 (see note below)]. On one of the fly-leaves are two manuscript notes, the first [by J. O. Halliwell Phillipps], stating that the work 'is valuable as supplying several lacunae in the printed edition', and the second, by T[homas] C. A[rcher], expressing the opinion that 'this MS. Itinerary was, in great part at least, compiled, as well as written, by Sir Simon Archer'. From a comparison with the published editions of the work, however, it does not appear that these claims can be substantiated. The volume is lettered on the spine '5 . . . Leland's Itinerary through Wales'. Inset is a holograph letter from Sy[mon] Archer, from Tanworth, to Thomas Habington, April 1638, requesting the recipient's aid in obtaining information regarding 'Sir Lewes Cliffordes father, knight of the garter in Richard the secondes tyme'.