Place:Breconshire, Wales

source: Getty Thesaurus of Geographic Names

source: Family History Library Catalog

In 1900, Breconshire was a county in Wales, BUT in 1974, Breconshire became a district in the newly formed county of Powys.

:the text in this section is based on an article in Wikipedia Breconshire (Welsh: Sir Frycheiniog), also known as the County of Brecknock, Brecknockshire, or the County of Brecon was one of thirteen historic counties of Wales. It was an "administrative county" until 1974 when it joined with Montgomeryshire and Radnorshire to make up the modern day County of Powys. Breconshire was bounded to the north by Radnorshire, to the east by Herefordshire (in England) and Monmouthshire, to the south by Monmouthshire and Glamorgan, and to the west by Carmarthenshire and Cardiganshire. The county is predominantly rural and mountainous. The Black Mountains occupy the southeast of the area, the Brecon Beacons the central region, Fforest Fawr the southwest and Mynydd Epynt the north. The highest point is Pen y Fan, 2907 ft (886 m). The River Wye traces nearly the whole of the northern boundary, and the Usk flows in an easterly direction through the central valley. The main towns are Brecon, Builth Wells, Crickhowell, Hay on Wye, Llanwrtyd Wells, Talgarth and Ystradgynlais, the largest town, at the edge of the South Wales valleys.

History

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

Creation of county

The Laws in Wales Act 1535 created the County of Brecknock by combining a number of "lordships, towns, parishes, commotes and cantrefs" in the "Country or Dominion of Wales". The areas combined were: "Brekenoke" (Brecknock or Brecon), "Crekehowell" (Crickhowell), "Tretowre", "Penkelly" or Pencelli, "Englisshe Talgarth", "Welsshe Talgarth", "Dynas", "The Haye" (Hay on Wye), "Glynebogh", "Broynlles" (Bronllys), "Cantercely" (or Cantref Selyf), "Llando Blaynllynby", "Estrodewe", "Buelthe" (Builth Wells), and "Llangors". The town of Brecknock or Brecon was declared the county town.

The county was divided into six hundreds: Builth Hundred, Crucywel Hundred or Crickhowell Hundred, Defynnog Hundred, Merthyr Hundred, Pencelli Hundred, and Talgarth Hundred. Brecknock was the only borough in the county. Other market towns were Builth, Crickhowell and Hay on Wye. Under the terms of the 1535 legislation one member of parliament was returned for the borough and one for the county.

Nineteenth and twentieth centuries

Under the Local Government Act 1888, an elected county council was formed and the area of the county was adjusted, with a number of industrialised areas in the south of the county (Beaufort, Dukestown, Llechryd and Rassau) being transferred to Monmouthshire. The county council was based at the Shire Hall in Brecon.

Under the Public Health Act 1848 and the Local Government Act 1858 a number of towns were created Local Board Districts or Local Government Districts respectively, with local boards of health to govern their areas. In 1875 these, along with the Borough of Brecknock, became urban sanitary districts. At the same time the remainder of the county was divided into rural sanitary districts, some of which crossed county boundaries. The Local Government Act 1894 redesignated these as urban and rural districts. Until 1934 two civil parishes were administered by rural district councils in neighbouring counties.

After 1974

The administrative county of Brecon (or Brecknockshire) was abolished in 1974 by the Local Government Act 1972. The bulk of its area passed to the new county of Powys, where it became the "Borough" of Brecknock, one of three districts of the new county. At the same time the parishes of Penderyn and Vaynor went instead to the Cynon Valley and Merthyr Tydfil Districts in Mid Glamorgan, whilst the urban district of Bryn Mawr and the parish of Llanelli from Crickhowell Rural District became part of Blaenau Gwent, a local government district of the new county of Gwent.

In 1996 a further reorganisation of local government took place in Wales, and Powys became a unitary authority. A "Brecknockshire" area was formed under a decentralisation scheme, and a "shire committee" consisting of councillors elected for electoral divisions within the former Borough of Brecknock exercises functions delegated by Powys County Council. According to the 2001 UK census the area covered by the shire committee had a population of 42,075.

Research Tips

• The National Library of Wales has just uploaded (Feb 2018) a website covering the tithe maps of Wales with accompanying apportionment documents using original and present-day maps. There are over 300,000 entries. Landowners and small villages are included. The presentation looks very good.
• A 1900 Ordnance Survey map of the historic county of Breconshire 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.
• 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.