Place:Castellan, Pembrokeshire, Wales

source: Family History Library Catalog

the text in this section is based on an article in Wikipedia

Castellan is an ancient hamlet and, until 1974, was a parish in the Hundred of Kilgerran, Pembrokeshire, Wales. It is situated in the north of the county on the slopes of the hill or mountain of Frenni Fawr, one mile (2 km) north of Crymych and included much of the village of Blaenffos.

The parish had an area of 920 acres (370 hectares). It was originally a chapelry of the parish of Penrhydd, granted by William Marshal, Earl of Pembroke, to the Knights Hospitallers of Slebech c.1130 and was returned in the Valor Ecclesiasticus of 1291. In 1684 the rector and churchwardens of Penrhydd and Castellan declared the chapel to be "out of repair", the bier having been stolen some 28 years previously. It was annexed to Penrhydd Parish soon after the dissolution of the monasteries but was abandoned by c.1700 and in ruins by 1833. The church is no longer marked on Ordnance Survey maps.

The 1831 census listed the chapelry as having 26 families in as many homes with no uninhabited buildings; 17 of the families were chiefly involved in agriculture and 7 in trades, crafts or manufacture.

A tithe apportionment of 1837 and a map of 1844 are held at the National Archives. [Wikipedia does not say whether this is the National Archives of Wales or The National Archives (TNA) in Kew, London.]

Prior to 1850 the parish included the settlements of Blaenffos, Clover Hill, Frenni Fawr, Gorsfaith and Moelfryn with a population of 127 in 1833; earlier censuses included Castellan with Penrhydd and forming an extensive part of the parish of Penrhydd. In 1833 (despite the chapel being in ruins) the incumbent received one guinea annually from Sir R.B.P. Philipps of Picton Castle.

In 1881 more than half of men still worked in agriculture with the remainder in trades; while a few women were in domestic service or trade, the majority are listed as "unknown occupation", presumably housewives. The 1881 census records David Nicholas aged 37 as farming 57 acres, having been born in Castellan; Nicholas was the father of Thomas Evan Nicholas (1879-1971).

By 1901 there were more than 40 houses in the parish, dipping to 37 in 1931 but rising to 46 in 1961.

The northern part of the parish is now in the community of Boncath, and the southern part is in Crymych community. The name of the parish survives in Castellan Farm, near the site of the chapel (no longer accessible).

Castellan's census population was estimated (being counted with Penrhydd parish) as 82 in 1801 and 105 in 1811. Subsequently the population grew to a maximum of about 170 in the mid-19th century, to a minimum of 115 in 1951, and thereafter had grown again to 162 by 1981.

Research Tips

• A 1900 Ordnance Survey map of the historic county of Pembrokeshire is available on the A Vision of Britain through Time website. This shows all the old parishes within their urban and rural districts. Large farms and estates are also marked. On the Cemais Rural District page there is a sketchmap indicating the civil parishes of Cemais Rural District as of 1935. Cemais was a rural district formed in 1934 from the earlier Llanfyrnach and St. Dogmells Rural Districts.
• Pembrokeshire Archives has a website with a list of their holdings, as well as historical notes on places in Pembrokeshire. Its address is Prendergast, Haverfordwest, SA61 2PE; Tel No: 01437 775456 or (+44)1437 775456 (out of UK), E-mail: record.office@pembrokeshire.gov.uk
• GENUKI has a page on each of the old counties of Wales and, under these counties, pages for each of the ecclesiastical parishes within the county. Information is gathered under a number of headings and the amount of information varies from parish to parish. Parish descriptions are based on a gazetteer dated 1835 and thus the emphasis is on ecclesiastical parishes. (Civil parishes were not yet established.) The submitter is very firm about his copyright. This should not stop anyone from reading the material.
• The GENUKI Pembrokeshire pages include, under Description and Travel close to the bottom of the page, a link "parish map" to a map website showing boundaries and settlements before 1850. On the linked page will be maps of several parishes located close to each other.
• GENUKI also provides references to other organizations who hold genealogical information for the local area, but there is no guarantee that the website has been kept up to date for every county.
• FreeBMD provides a link to a list of the civil registration districts for each Welsh county from 1837 to 1996. Civil registration districts changed with varying densities of population and improvements in communication. Most counties and unitary authorities now have only one district. The list helps with providing names for the registration districts listed in the FreeBMD index and also as a guide for where to look for census entries.
• The FamilySearch Wiki has a series of pages similar to those provided by GENUKI and these have been prepared at a later date. The Wiki may look like Wikipedia but the information has been provided for family historians. There are tables of links between the parishes in the historic counties of Wales and their post-1996 counterparts. This is the only genealogical website found that provides this information universally; others are not as thorough.
• Some words in Welsh come up time and time again and you may want to know what they mean or how to pronounce them. For example,
  "Eglwys" is a church and the prefix "Llan" is a parish.
  "w" and "y" are used as vowels in Welsh.
  "Ll" is pronounced either "cl" or "hl" or somewhere in between. "dd" sounds like "th".
  The single letter "Y" is "the" and "Yn" means "in".
  "uwch" means "above"; "isod" is "below" or "under";
  "gwch" is "great", "ychydig" is "little";
  "cwm" is a "valley".

In both Welsh and English all these words are commonly used in place names in the UK. Place names are often hyphenated, or two words are combined into one. Entering your problem phrase into Google Search, including the term "meaning in Welsh", will lead you to Google's quick translation guide. I'm no authority; these are just things I have picked up while building up this gazetteer for WeRelate.