Place:Penrhydd, Pembrokeshire, Wales

source: Family History Library Catalog

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

Penrhydd (variously spelled Penrydd, Penrhudd, Penrith, Penreth or Penrieth) is a former parish in the Hundred of Kilgerran, north Pembrokeshire, Wales. The parish's history is closely linked with that of Castellan, and included parts of the present villages of Blaenffos and Crymych. Penrhydd was absorbed in 1974 into the community of Boncath.

The church

The parish church of St Cristiolus (Church in Wales) existed at least as early as 1799, the earliest date from which parish register information has been garnered. From 1799 to 1858 the parish register is titled "Penrhydd with Castellan", Castellan being a chapelry at that time.

A Vision of Britain through Time provides the following description of Penrhydd from John Marius Wilson's Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales of 1870-72:

"PENRITH, or Penrhydd, a parish in the [registration] district of Newcastle-Emlyn and county of Pembroke[shire]; under Vrenin-vawr mountain, 7 miles S W of Newcastle-Emlyn [railway] station. It includes the chapelry of Castellan; and its post town is Cardigan. Acres: 3,081. Real property: £1, 245. Population: 370. Houses: 93. The living is a rectory in the diocese of St. Davids. Value: £100. Patron: the Lord Chancellor."

The church had been rebuilt in 1841 and restored in 1911; in 1914 it was described as "plain" and "whitewashed". A survey by Dyfed Archaeological Trust for Cadw in 2011 describes the present churchyard as "...suboval/subrectangular, now poorly defined..." and the church as "...small, comprising chancel, nave and west porch. It is now in private hands...". The following year it was described as abandoned.

The civil parish

The annual value of the real property of the parish, including Castellan, was £756 in 1815 when the joint population was 273. By 1821 and 1831 the population of Penrydd parish alone was 190 and 219 respectively, but Castellan was still considered to be a township in 1887.

In 1831-33 the parish (including the chapelry of Castellan) was home to 346 inhabitants and included both enclosed arable land or pasture and unenclosed moorland. About 70% of males over 20 were involved in agriculture with the rest in retail or manufacturing trades. Of those in agriculture, the majority farmed in their own right, as opposed to labouring for others.

Tithe apportionments of 1837 and tithe maps of 1844 are held at the National Archives (the TNA at Kew, London).

By 1881 the majority of males (about 60%) were still in agriculture, but there were more involved in other occupations such as quarrying. There is an Ordnance Survey-marked disused quarry close to Castellan Farm.

Penrhydd was included in the National Farm Survey of 1941-3 during World War 2, the records of which are held at the National Archives.

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.