PWLLCROCHAN - from Lewis' Topographical Dictionary of Wales (1833)

PWLLCROCHON (PWLL-CROCHAN), a parish in the hundred of CASTLEMARTIN, county of PEMBROKE, SOUTH WALES, 5 miles (W. by N.) from Pembroke, containing 174 inhabitants. This parish is situated on the south side of Milford Haven, and comprises a considerable tract of arable and pasture land, of which, with the exception of a comparatively small portion, the whole is enclosed and in a good state of cultivation. Limestone abounds within its limits, and some of the inhabitants are employed in the quarries, which are worked on a moderate scale. A small creek of Milford Haven affords great facility for conveying their produce to its destination. The living is a rectory, in the archdeaconry and diocese of St. David's, rated in the king's books at £9. 12. 11., and in the patronage of the King, as Prince of Wales. The church, dedicated to St. Mary, is a venerable structure, in the decorated style of English architecture, erected in the fourteenth century by Radulph Beneger, then rector of the parish, who was interred in the south aisle, where his effigy is placed in a recess, with the following inscription in old Norman characters: "Hie jacet Radulphus Beneger, Hujus ecclesiae rector." In a tablet inserted in the wall there is also a complimentary tribute in Latin verse; and in the outer angle of the north transept is the inscription, also in Norman characters, "A.D. 1342, Erat ista Ecclesia constructa de novo, cum capella ista, per Radulphum Beneger, qui rexit ecclesiam per annos . . ." In the churchyard a skirmish took place in 1648, during the parliamentary war in the reign of Charles I., between the royalist and parliamentary forces. There is a place of worship for Welsh Calvinistic Methodists. John Meares, Esq., of Istington, in this parish, in 1763, charged his estates in Pembrokeshire with the payment of £12 per annum for the instruction of twelve poor boys of this and the adjoining parish of Rhôscrowther: the schoolroom, which had been previously built by that gentleman, is kept in repair by his successors, who, with the rector for the time being, have the nomination of the children. The average annual expenditure for the support of the poor amounts to £115. 15.

Gareth Hicks, 1 Jan 2000