- source: Family History Library Catalog
- the text in this section is based on an article in Wikipedia
Granston (Welsh: Treopert) is a hamlet and parish in Pembrokeshire, Wales. The parish was in the Hundred of Dewisland and includes the settlements of Llangloffan and Tregwynt, with Tregwynt woollen mill. The size of the parish is 1,639 acres (6.63 km2). Granston is now in the community of Pencaer.
Pencaer is a community in northwestern Pembrokeshire which covers an area of dispersed settlement and comprises the former parishes of Llanwnda, Granston, and St. Nicholas. The population of the entire community taken at the UK 2011 census was 474.
The ecclesiastical parish was annexed to that of Mathry and the church dedicated to St. Catherine (sometimes recorded as Katherine), one of only three mediaeval churches in Wales to be dedicated to the saint. In 1920 it was found to have been constructed in 1877 with no evidence of the mediaeval structure save an octagonal font probably from the 14th century. However, the diocesan description notes that the foundations are mediaeval. The earliest church records of the parish are from 1291 and 1326.
Tregwynt
Granston includes the estate of Tregwynt, whose papers are held by the Pembrokeshire Record Office (see Research Tips). In the 14th century Sir William Horton of Tregwynt married the heiress to Candleston Castle. The Tregwynt Hoard, from the Civil War, was found at Tregwynt Mansion in 1996. The present Grade II*-listed manor house dates from the 18th century.
Tregwynt mill (Melin Tregwynt in Welsh) dates back to the 17th century when it served the surrounding area’s sheep farming. It is still in operation, employing about 30 people, and in 2012 celebrated 100 years as a family business, now weaving for a global market.
Llangloffan
The parish includes the hamlet of Llangloffan (south of Granston), where there is a Baptist chapel. The original chapel was built in 1706, restored in 1749 and 1791 and rebuilt in 1862. There is no baptismal pool at the chapel, baptisms being performed at a specially constructed site in the Western Cleddau (river) at Pont Llangloffan, south of the hamlet. Llangloffan is the name of a Welsh hymn melody (composer unknown).
Archives for both the church at Granston and the church at Llangloffan are kept by Dyfed Family History Society.
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.
- 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.
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