Welsh Journals

PENNANT MELANGELL PART 2 Place-names and Field-names of Pennant Melangell G.G. EVANS The reader will be very much aware of the variety of riches which a study of this area provides. Its place-names are also varied, numerous and fascinating. A full account of them will one day appear under the aegis of the Montgomeryshire Place-Names Project when they will by analysed and interpreted. This article purports to do no more than glimpse at an inheritance which is as significant as any other aspect of the study. This cursory survey is limited in several respects. The place-names and field-names mentioned are largely confined within the area around the old llan in Cwm Pennant. The place- names which are given are very largely from the latest Ordnance Survey 1:25,000 map.2 Earlier maps, such as the 6in to a mile O.S. of 1903, contain names which are as interesting and significant as any in use today. The treatment of the field-names is also incomplete as the material used was largely limited to the names recorded in the Tithe Survey of the parish in the 1840s. Names recorded in documents such as wills and estate books of earlier centuries and those recorded nearer our time, with particular attention to oral recording of names remembered by elderly inhabitants and the names in use on farms today, remain to be researched. In spite of these limitations I trust that students of place-names will find something of value and that the names in themselves will interest and perhaps fascinate some readers. Townships As we have seen above, at the time of the Tithe Survey in 1845, Upper Pennant consisted of four townships (figs 1.2-1.3), Tre'rllan, Dwyffrwd, Pengwern and Cwmllech. Tre'rllan was the central township around the church in Cwm Pennant. Llan is used not only for the church itself but for the part of a settlement around the church. 'Going to the llan' does not of necessity mean attending a service. There are similar townships so named elsewhere such as Manafon Llan, Tre'rllan in Llanfechain and Llan in Llansantffraid. South of the llan is Dwyffrwd, now part of Llanwddyn, unlike the other three which today belong to Llangynog. It is the situation between two streams that accounts for the name. The township of Pengwern (the head/top of the damp land, the kind of land on which alders grow) lies downstream from Tre'rllan. South of Afon Tanad is Cwmllech. Llech means slate while another llech means a hiding place. Hill names We begin our survey of the natural features of the area by looking at the names of peaks and uplands. A common generic name is moel, bare hill or mountain. We find in the area MoelBlaen See also T.W. Hancock, Pennant Melangell; its parochial history and antiquities, Montgomeryshire Collections 1 I (1878), 332-33, for an account of the names of hills, moors and streams in the parish. "Ordnance Survey Pathfinder Series 846. Grid references have not been included. The following grid squares will enable readers to locate the townships: Tre'rllan SJ 0226, Cwmllech SJ 0224, Dwyffwd SJ 0121, Pengwern SJ 0425. The area studied is well within the rectangle SJ 00 07 easterly and SJ 21 28 northerly.