LLANTWIT FARDRE

"LLANTWIT FARDRE, (or Llantwit or Llantwitvairdre), a parish in the hundred of Miskin, county Glamorgan, 3 miles N.E. of Llantrisaint, its post town, 3½ from Cowbridge, and 4 W. of Caerphilly. It is situated on the western bank of the river Taff and the Merthyr-Tydvil canal. The Treforest station, on the Taff Vale and Aberdare railway, is a short distance from the village. The parish includes the townships of Newbridge and Treforest, where tin is obtained, in the neighbourhood of Pont-y-Prydd Bridge. Here are collieries and iron-works. In the 5th century a monastery was founded here by St. Illtyd, which became very celebrated in the Welsh Church as a school of divinity, numbering among its scholars the historian Gildas, St. David, and, as some accounts affirm, Taliesin, the chief of bards. Many of the abbots of Llantwit were bishops of Llandaff The living is a vicarage in the diocese of Llandaff; with the rectory of Llysworney annexed, value £347, in the patronage of the Dean and Chapter of Gloucester. The church, dedicated to St. Illtyd, is a very ancient and interesting relic of antiquity. It consists of two buildings adjoining each other, called the old and new churches. The latter, by a strange anachronism, called the New church, is apparently two centuries the oldest, having been built in the 13th century. It consists of a nave, aisles, and chancel, with a good rood-screen, in which are vacant niches once adorned with images of the twelve apostles. The old church contains some mural paintings and curious antique monuments, and has on the W. side a lady chapel about 40 feet in length. In the churchyard are the remains of a cross erected in the 6th century, a stone with a Runic inscription, and two Roman tombs. The parochial charities consist of £2 annually, the endowment of Griffith's almshouses. There are schools for boys and girls. In the vicinity are remains of a castellated house, called the Castle, and about a mile to the S.E. traces of the old seat of the Seys family, originally a grange belonging to the lords of Cardiff. Near the coast are the Castle Ditches and numerous caves in the cliffs, in one of which tradition asserts that marriages were formerly celebrated.

"HAM, a hamlet in the parish of Llantwit-Fardre, county Glamorgan, 4 miles S. of Cowbridge."

"PWLL ELECH, a hamlet in the parish of Llantwit-Fardre, hundred of Cowbridge, county Glamorgan, 5 miles S.W. of Glamorgan. It is situated near the coast of the Bristol Channel."

"SIGGINSTON, a hamlet in the parish of Llantwit Fardre, county Glamorgan, 4 miles S.W. of Cowbridge."

"TREFOREST, a village in the parish of Llantwit Fardre, county Glamorgan, 3 miles N.E. of Llantrisaint. It is a station on the Taff Valley railway."

[Transcribed from The National Gazetteer of Great Britain and Ireland 1868]
by Colin Hinson ©2018