Welsh Journals

Search over 450 titles and 1.2 million pages

CASTLE VILLA CAS WILIA Major Francis Jones, C.V.O., T.D., D.L., Wales Herald of Arms Extraordinary Tucked away in the northernmost corner of the parish of Brawdy, the farmhouse of Castle Villa stands on a gentle slope above the west bank of the stream that forms the boundary with the parish of St. Lawrence, and at the entrance to the yard are remains of a fortification of the Iron Age, known as Castell Wilia from which the place takes its name. In deeds and documents, down to the early nineteenth century, the name was usually given as Castell or Castle Vilia or Wilia which has developed in modern days to the hybrid Castle Villa in written form, although it is still rendered by local people as Caswilia, thus remaining faithful to the original orthography. Below the house, and near the spot where the stream crosses the road. known variously as Dwr Caswilia and Dwr Trewilym, there was at one time a corn mill, but this has totally disappeared. Across the wooded dingle, some three or four bowshots away is Trewilym sometimes written as Williamston in old documents, a former manorhouse, home of a medieval family named Dru, and afterwards home of the last of the old Castle Villa stock. The stream which here forms the boundary of Brawdy parish, flows southwards past Trewilym, Trebwrnallt (Tancredston), Gignog, and Pont-y-garn. until it reaches the sea at Newgale. Due to mistaken reading by an eighteenth cen- tury cartographer, it has been marked on subsequent maps as "Brandy" in- stead of Brawdy brook, and although this triumph of consonantal mutilation continues to disfigure modern maps, natives of the district are never guilty of such bizarre practice, and refer to it as "afon Niwgwl". The Commissioners of Ancient Monuments in their report on Pembrokeshire, contributed further to etymological lunacy by describing it as Bran ddu Brook! Although much destroyed and almost obliterated on its eastern and southern sides, the fortification of Caswilia had been an important refuge. Consisting of an inner enclosure, 150 feet by 100 feet in diameter, it was defended by two, and in places by three earthen banks and ditches. A description made about the year 1900, states that the defences "where best preserved, consist of a rampart 3 feet above the interior, with two other ram- parts in front; the outer has no ditch; their crests are 10 feet and 3 feet below the first. The ditches are shallow, the outer one, the deepest, being only 3 feet below the ground outside. On the north-west side, between the inner and the second bank, an additional bank has been interpolated for some distance. It is now 2 feet only above the first ditch, and 3 feet between it and the second line. This bank, for a distance of 50 feet from the entrance, has been replaced by a terrace occupying a similar position to that of Merrion (parish of Warren), though smaller (Ancient Monuments Report, County of Pembroke, p.25). In its complete form it must have been a large and formidable for- tification. The upper and more perfect portion of it is now overgrown with bushes and trees. This hill-fort may well date from the Iron Age period, and that it was a site of settlement from early times is confirmed by other relics found nearby, namely two megalithic monuments now preserved within the porch of the church of Brawdy. The first of these, 110 inches high, once serv- ed as a gatepost at Caswilia, and bears, in ogam characters, the inscription MAQ(I) QAGTE. Sir John Rhys suggested the possibility that the name was associated with that of Mac Cecht, a name well-known in Irish legend. As there are several traces of Irish settlement in Dewsland still preserved in