Place:Betws y Crwyn, Shropshire, England

source: Family History Library Catalog

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

Betws y Crwyn is a small, remote village and civil parish in southwest Shropshire, England. It is close to the Wales-England border and is one of a number of English villages to have a Welsh language placename, which translates roughly as "chapel of the fleeces". The parish name was formerly written simply as "Bettws", and the suffix, probably a local name for the church, only appears in written records in the nineteenth century. The parish, including the hamlets of Anchor, Quabbs and Hall of the Forest had a total population of 212 at the 2001 UK census, increasing to 239 at the 2011 census.

It lies at 400 m (1,300 ft) above sea level, making it one of the highest settlements in Shropshire and England too. The village is about sixteen miles (26 km) west of the Shropshire town of Craven Arms, and only about nine miles (14 km) southeast of Newtown in Powys, Wales.

To contrast, A Vision of Britain through Time provides the following description of Bettws y Crwyn from John Marius Wilson's Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales of 1870-72:

"BETTWS, or Bettws-y-Crwyn, a parish in the [registration] district of Knighton and county of Salop [or Shropshire]; on the river Teme and on Offa's Dyke, adjacent to Wales, 8 miles NW of Knighton [railway] station, and 10 SE of Newtown. It contains the townships of Rugantine and Trebrodier, and part of the township of Kevencalanog; and its Post Town is Knighton [Radnorshire]. Acres: 8,664. Real property: £3,065. Population: 520. Houses: 97. The property is divided among a few. The surface is upland, and includes a range called the Bettws hills. The living is a vicarage in the diocese of Hereford. Value: £57. Patron: Earl Powis. The church is tolerable."

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