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BETTWS - Extract from A Topographical Dictionary of Wales by Samuel Lewis 1833

"BETTWS, a parish in the hundred of NEWCASTLE, county of GLAMORGAN, SOUTH WALES, 5 miles (N.) from Bridgend, containing 362 inhabitants. This parish is pleasantly situated on the river Ogmore, not far from its confluence with the Severn, and is watered by the rivulets Llynvi and Garw, which bound it on two sides.

The surrounding scenery is pleasing and picturesque, and in the immediate neighbourhood are some handsome seats. Coytrehene, the seat of Morgan Popkin Traherne, Esq., is a handsome mansion, occupying a retired, but agreeable situation on the declivity of a hill, surrounded with luxuriant plantations, with the river Ogmore flowing at its base, and commands a beautiful view of the surrounding country, and of the confluence of that river with the Severn in the distance : it was anciently the property of the Powells, from whom it passed by marriage to the families of Popkin and Traherne. Within half a mile of Coytrehene, a small, but elegant residence, in the Elizabethan style of architecture, has been recently erected, under the direction of Mr. Traherne, for his sister, the widow of the late George Jenner, Esq., of Doctors' Commons.

The parish abounds with excellent coal, which till lately was procured only for the supply of the inhabitants of the district ; but a vein has recently been opened by John Edwards Vaughan, Esq., of Rheola, in the Vale of Neath, which is worked on a more extensive scale, and for the readier conveyance of which a tram-road has been constructed by that gentleman, communicating with the rail-road leading from Bridgend to the shipping-place at Porthcawl.

The living is a perpetual curacy, annexed to the vicarage of Newcastle, which is endowed with the rectorial tithes of this parish, in the archdeaconry and diocese of Llandaf. The church, dedicated to St. David, is not distinguished by any architectural features. There is a place of worship for Unitarians, which has a small endowment.

The Coytrehene estate is charged with an annual payment of £2, and £l. 10. per annum is secured by a deed poll on the Bridgend turnpike trust, for distribution among the poor. Dr. Richard Price, an eminent nonconformist divine, and moral and political writer, was born at Tynton, in this parish, in February 1723; he died at Hackney, in Middlesex, on the 19th of April, 1791, and was interred in the burial-ground in Bunhill-Fields. As one of the staunchest advocates of civil and religious liberty, his publications on the events of the American and French Revolutions acquired for him a high reputation as a political writer, besides various honours from public societies, and distinguished him for a soundness of judgment and power of observation and reflection, which were equally conspicuous in his theological and metaphysical productions. The average annual expenditure for the support of the poor is £ 122. 13." [Last Updated : 3 Oct 2002 - Gareth Hicks]