GENUKI : Gwytherin, St. Winifred

Gwytherin

"A parish in the Union of Llanrwst, hundred of Isaled, county of Denbigh, 6 miles (ESE) from Llanrwst. ..... Within this parish, which is situated in the mountainous district of the county, are the sources of the rivers Elwy, Aled and Alwen, upon the first of which, about two miles below its source, the village is pleasantly seated. The surface of the surrounding country is beautifully diversified, and in many parts the scenery is highly picturesque: within the parish are three noble lakes, Llyn Alwen, Llyn Moelvre, and Llyn Aled, the last of which is enclosed on almost every side by mountains covered with dark and barren heath."
[ A Topographical Dictionary of Wales, 1833 & 1849, Samuel Lewis]

This is a remote and mountainous parish of about 6000 acres, divided into two townships, Is-llan and Uwch-llan. At one time, there were two other townships, Pennant and Cornwal.

Bibliography
Church History
Church Records
Civil Registration
Description and Travel

Maps
Population
Social Life and Customs
Statistics

Bibliography

Butler, Lawrence and James Graham-Campbell. A lost reliquary casket from Gwytherin, north Wales Antiquaries Journal 70 (1990), p. 40-8.
Edwards, Nancy and Tristan Gray Hulse. A fragment of a reliquary casket from Gwytherin, north Wales Antiquaries Journal, 72 (1992), p. 91-101
Roberts, Ceinwen. Gofaint Gwytherin Fferm a Thyddyn. Rhif 40 (Calan Gaeaf 2007), p. 4-5.
Roberts, Heulwen Ann. Ffatri wlân Gwytherin, a'i gweithwyr Fferm a thyddyn, Rhif 44 (Calan Gaeaf 2009), p. 8-9.

Church History

Ordnance Survey reference SH 877614.
Gwytherin was a place of very early ecclesiastical note, and legend has it that St. Winifred, after leaving Holywell, became Abbess of a convent there. The original church appears to have been founded by St. Eleri. It was re-built at some early period, and re-dedicated in the name of St. James. This building in turn became very dilapidated, and was taken down in 1867. The new church, which was consecrated on 3 June 1869, was dedicated to St. Winifred.

The Clwyd FHS website has a photograph of the church.

Gwytherin churchyard - on the Megalithic portal

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 Gwytherin :

Name of Chapel	Denomination	Number of "adherents"
Silo Cae'rgraig (administered jointly)	Calvinistic Methodists	230 69

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Church Records

Parish Registers

The following Parish Registers have been deposited at the National Library of Wales, Aberystwyth.
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
1718 - 1992	1718 - 1970	1718 - 1994

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

Baptisms	Marriages	Burials
1667 - 1812	1672 - 1812	1667 - 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
1667 - 1835	1671 - 1835

I.G.I.

There are no official I.G.I. entries for St. Winifred's, Gwytherin.

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Civil Registration

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

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

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

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

Description and Travel

Gwytherin - on the hiraethog site

Gwytherin - on Vision of Britain

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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 463.
In 1901- the population was 289.
[ Royal Commission on the Welsh Church - October 1907]

Social Life and Customs

Nash, Roy. Family and Economic Structure in C19th Wales : Llangernyw and Gwytherin in 1871 (NLW's site) Welsh History Review 11

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Statistics

Archdeacon Thomas gives the area of the parish as 6118 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