Welsh Journals

Angelstown 1758 NLW Coleman Deeds 873, 245. Angel Town 1779 GRO D/D Dun (Estate maps); 1824 7-8 Geo. IV (1827). Angelston 1785 GRO D/D Xjn 28. Angelton 1814 OS MS 1"; 1830 OS 36. Angeltown (village) 1841 Census 437; 1851 Census 25. Angleton (sic), Angelton farm 1846 Reg. Electors. Angelton was a hamlet at approximately SS 899 816 off the modern A4063 road which runs from Bridgend to Aberkenfig, a little south of the sites of the present Glanrhyd and Pen-y-fai hospitals, the former being the earlier (1857) County Lunatic Asylum (Randall, Bridgend, 141). The entrance road to the Pen-y-fai hospital both from the A4063 and from Pen-y-fai itself on the higher ground to the north now bears the name Angelton Road. There was a Great House and at least three other houses belonging to the Talbot of Hensol estate in Angelton in 1636-8. Early OS maps show a larger number of houses, and in 1753-4 one of Griffith Jones's Circulating Schools was being held there. The settlement clearly took its name from an original homestead or tref which may be represented by Angelton farm 1846, but it is not possible at present to ascertain its date or period of origin, the 1518 source being the earliest evidenced to date. The key form which aids identification is that of 1618 Tre Angel, by which time the second element of the name has already assumed the form angel, and it should be appreciated that this would have been pronounced originally in the Welsh manner, not the English. It seems highly likely that the change from -annell to -angel came about in the first place through an intermediate stage, possibly under anglicising influences, which saw the pronunciation of the Welsh lateral fricative as i.e. -annell > -annel as in the forms evidenced in 1584-5, 1636 and 1638, with a further nasalisation of -nn- to -ng- > -angel (this is evidenced in Yrannell > Yrangell in Pembs, EANC 94-96), and this latter form gained currency through the process known as popular etymology. R.J. Thomas (EANC loc. cit.; B vii, 125-6) notes that the original Welsh second element, in modern orthography, is probably arannell. It occurs as a stream-name in LL 75, 173, in the form arganhell, argannel, these being the earliest recorded forms, but this reference is to a stream which flows into the Monnow near St. Maughan's in Gwent. No fewer than eleven other streams in Wales and the border which bear this name have been recorded.