GENUKI : Derwen, St. Mary's

Derwen

"A parish in the Union and hundred of Ruthin, county of Denbigh; 7 miles (SW by S) from Ruthin, containing 569 inhabitants. ..... The village is situated near the source of the river Clwyd and abounds with springs of excellent water. About a mile from the village is a quarry of stone, which is soft and of peculiarly fine grain, and is much esteemed for sharpening the finest instruments, being found nowhere else in this country: great quantities are sent to London, and some of it has been exported to America."
[ A Topographical Dictionary of Wales, 1833 & 1849, Samuel Lewis]

The ancient parish of Derwen comprised the two townships of Dyfanedd and Ysceifiog.

Church History
Church Records
Civil Registration
Description and Travel

Maps
Population
Statistics

Church History

Ordnance Survey reference SJ 070507.
The church, which is dedicated to the Blessed Virgin Mary, was mentioned in the Norwich Taxation of 1254. It was restored in 1857.
The church is no longer used for worship, having been closed during 1998 / 1999.

The Clwyd FHS website has a photograph of the church.

St Mary's Church, Derwen - on wikipedia

Nonconformist Churches "Welsh Church Commission - County of Denbigh - The Statistics of the Nonconformist Churches for 1905"lists the following nonconformist places of worship in the Civilparish of Derwen :

Name of Chapel	Denomination	Number of "adherents"
Clawddnewydd	Calvinistic Methodists	171
Not named	Calvinistic Methodists	128

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Church Records

Parish Registers

The following Parish Registers have been deposited at the Denbighshire Record Office, Ruthin.
They may be viewed on microfilm at the Denbighshire and Flintshire Record Offices, and at the National Library of Wales, Aberystwyth.
These microfilms are not available elsewhere.

Baptisms	Marriages	Burials
1633 - 1891	1632 - 1968	1633 - 1916

Clwyd FHS has published full transcriptions of the registers (complete with indexes) for the following years :

Baptisms	Marriages	Burials
1632 - 1812	1632 - 1812	1632 - 1812

Bishop's Transcripts

Bishop's Transcripts for the years shown below have been deposited in the National Library of Wales, Aberystwyth.
Around the year 1951, most of the Bishop's Transcripts which had been deposited at that time were microfilmed by the LDS; and the films are available on request at Family History Centres of the LDS.
The films may also be viewed at the Denbighshire and Flintshire Record Offices, and at the National Library of Wales.
In general, the Bishop's Transcripts are less complete than the parish registers.

Deposited at the National Library of Wales	Microfilmed copies
1677 - 1851	1813 - 1851

I.G.I.

The following have been incorporated into the I.G.I., as part of an "official extraction" programme.
They were extracted from the Bishop's Transcripts, not from the Parish Registers.

Baptisms	Marriages
1813 - 1851	1813 - 1837

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Civil Registration

When Civil Registration was introduced (on 1 July 1837), the parish of Derwen was assigned to the No. 3 ("Llanelidan") sub-district of the Ruthin Registration District; which was co-extensive with the Ruthin poor law Union.

In the GRO indexes to civil registration, entries for Derwen are in the format :

Years 1837 - 1851: Ruthin XXVII. nnn
Years 1851 - 1930: Ruthin 11b. nnn

(GRO index references have no relevance at the local Superintendent Registrar's Office)

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Description and Travel

Derwen - on wikipedia

Maps

View maps covering the area of this parish and places within its boundaries

On Clwyd FHS's site there is a diagram showing parish names/positions with links to pages for the parish church

Kain, R.J.P., Oliver, R.R., Historic Parishes of England and Wales: an Electronic Map of Boundaries before 1850 with a Gazetteer and Metadata [computer file]. Colchester, Essex: History Data Service, UK Data Archive [distributor], 17 May 2001. SN: 4348. Here is a gazetteer/finding aid plus a set of overview maps to accurately identify the position of parishes within the county

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Population

In 1831- the population was 522.
In 1901- the population was 475.
[ Royal Commission on the Welsh Church - October 1907]

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Statistics

Archdeacon Thomas gives the area of the parish as 3912 acres.
[ The History of the Diocese of St. Asaph , 1908-1913, Ven. D.R. Thomas]

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Last Updated 9 Jan 2013 - Gareth Hicks