Welsh Journals

traditionally supposed to be dedicated to Saint Corneli, known to have existed in the area. Some disturbance and intermingling of the skeletons had obviously occurred over the years, but it has proved possible to identify at least eleven individuals, including three children aged between 3 and 5 years (one with rickets); one adolescent aged between 15 and 17 years; two adult females; and five adult males, one of whom was elderly (over 50 years) having very worn teeth and severe arthritis of the spine. Very little dating material was recovered from the site, but the graves were cut through a deposit of wind-blown sand, suggesting a date later than the sand incursions of the fourteenth century. V.M. Metcalf Dickinson MARSH HOUSE, Aberthaw (ST 0308 6678) Recent field-work by the Royal Commission on Ancient & Historical Monuments has brought to light an interesting legacy of the 17th- century trade of the port of Aberthaw. Marsh House is situated on low-lying ground N.W. of the village of East Aberthaw in Penmark parish, in an isolated position close to the east bank of the former Thaw estuary. It comprises a fortified compound containing in its western angle a store-house later extended outside the perimeter, and along its N.E. side what was once a small, but fairly imposing house (fig. 1). The only entrance to the compound (now a modern gap) lay on the N.W. side, from which a track-way led towards the road from East Aberthaw to Burton Bridge. The walling throughout is of random lias rubble, containing the occasional fragment of hand-moulded 17th-century brick, cemented with good-quality sand-tempered mortar. Documentary evidence shows that the store-house and compound were build c. 1636, the house being added shortly afterwards, together with the store-house extension. The enclosure measures 100ft by 64ft and is bounded by a stone wall 8ft high and 2ft thick, pierced at regular intervals by simple musket-loops: the remains of ten are visible in the longer S.E. wall,