Welsh Journals

Search over 450 titles and 1.2 million pages

PedicaHonS of Cardiganshire Churches (Continued). HE present instalment deals with the ancient churches, and chapelries subsidiary to them, which are situated in the hundreds of liar and Penarth. According to John Speed who performed his map in the year 1610, there were then "seated" in the whole County sixty-four Parish Churches for God's divine and daily service. In the hundred of liar there are quite two dozen ancient Churches and Chapels-of-ease, and of these, the greater number are to be found studded along the sea-board extending from Henfynyw to Aberystwyth. In the Eastern portion of this hundred which is contiguous to Radnorshire and which may be described as the hinterland of the County, comprising as it does much craggy mountain and lake-land there are only one or two Churches, while in the neighbouring hundred of Penarth, which also contains much rough moorland and uninhabited solitudes and in which was situated the erstwhile extensive Rescob forest, there are only six ancient Churches and subsidary Chapels all told. In order to pursue our subject with some method and order, we intend to follow the coastline extending from Henfynyw to Aber- ystwyth, where as it has already been stated the Churches are most numerous. At HENFYNYW (Old Menevia) we have an ancient Church which was "restored" in the year 1866, dedicated to St. David. The name of this Saint needs no introduction, as among the four hundred and seventy saints to whom Wales lays claim St. David stands pre-eminent, and is familiar alike to Englishmen and Welshmen. His father was a powerful Cardiganshire prince, Sandde, the son of Ceredig lord of Ceredigion, his mother being Non the daughter of Gynyr of Caergawch, Pembrokeshire. It is said by Giraldus Cambrensis that he was born at the place since called St. David's. The same author adds that he was brought up and received his early education at Old Menevia, or Henfenyw in Welsh, a word which according to the opinion of some etymologists means, the old bush," the compound being borrowed from two languages, hen the Welsh for old and muni the Irish term for a bush. In the Taxatio of Pope Nicholas, Henfynyw is given in the forms Hendmene and Hevene which support the idea that the word is derived from hen and meini, i.e., old stones and that the form of the word has been changed into Henfynyw in order to establish a connection with the history of St. David, who is said to have spent some of his early years at Old Menevia. Another and more probable derivation of the word is Mainaw a narrow water, frith, or strait, which makes it correspond with St. David's or some spot near the Western promontory of Pembrokeshire.