Place:Goodwick, Pembrokeshire, Wales

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

Goodwick (Welsh: Wdig) is a coastal town in Pembrokeshire, in southwest Wales, immediately west of Fishguard. The two towns were separate Urban Districts until 1934 when they were combined as Fishguard and Goodwick. The combined urban district has been a single Community since 1974. The total population of the ward representing the town at the 2011 UK census was 1,988.

The coasts of Wales were subjected to Norse raids during the Viking Era and, in the latter 10th century, Norse trading posts and settlements became established. The place name probably derives from a combination of the old Norse forms: góðr (good) and vik (bay or cove) giving góðrvik. However the southeast facing hillside of Goodwick is sheltered from prevailing and salty SW winds and therefore naturally well tree-covered compared with the exposed headland above and the wet land of the bay. Many older developments in Goodwick have the name 'Goedwig' meaning forest - Goedwig Terrace, Villas, Chapel etc. Thus an alternative explanation for the name may be that it was Goedwig and Goorvik may just have been a happy coincidence for the invaders.

Goodwick was a small fishing village in the parish of Llanwnda known by its Welsh name of Wdig. (Source: A Vision of Britain through Time) In 1887 work commenced on a railway connection and harbour, and the village grew rapidly to service this. The main industry is now tourism although in the town's industrial past brick-making was once an important industry. Some fishing still takes place on a small scale but most activity is centered on Milford Haven.

Goodwick expanded sufficiently to become a separate civil parish and Urban District in 1923. The original size of Goodwick was 1890 acres, most of which was taken from the western side of the parish of Llanwnda.

Fishguard Harbour

Fishguard Harbour (which actually links to Goodwick rather than Fishguard) was constructed by blasting 1.6 million tonnes of rock from the hillside to make a 900 m long breakwater. The boundary of the quarried-out area became the quay. The harbour was opened on 30 August 1906. Planned to be the end of the Great Western Railway's line and its major sea port, replacing Neyland, problems with the harbour prevented larger ocean liners from docking. Accordingly, a smaller inner breakwater was constructed protecting the remaining open side.

The Great Western Railway ordered three new steamers for its service to Rosslare in the Republic of Ireland, the St. David, St. George and St. Patrick.

RMS Mauretania visited once in 1909 although passengers had to board by tender when transferring to and from the London train. The smaller breakwater was built as part of the preparations for the visit of the RMS Mauretania and is sometimes known as the "Mauretania Mole". The breakwater lead to unanticipated silting, and the prospect of future visits from larger liners was abandoned. Directly above the harbour is a small estate known as "Harbour Village", built to house workers during the construction of the harbour.

The port now accommodates a ferry service to Rosslare operated by Stena Line.

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 Haverfordwest Rural District page there is a sketchmap indicating the civil parishes of Haverfordwest Rural District as of 1935.
• 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.