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The Penrice family are first documented in Gower in 1201 when a John De Penris witnessed a deed concerning land in Walterston.7 At some time prior to 1230 a Robert de Penrice gave the church of St. Andrew at Penrice to the Knights of the Hospital of St. John of Jerusalem35, implying that the family had control of the manor of Penrice by that date. Sir Robert Penrice's marriage to the heiress of Oxwich advanced the fortune of the family and it was perhaps this increase in wealth that enabled Sir Robert to build the stone castle at Penrice, to replace the earlier timber and earth castle (now known as the Mounty Brook or Brough) which was probably the family's original home in Gower. It is doubtful whether Penrice Castle was occupied much after 1340, for the senior branch of the Penrice family seems to have moved to Oxwich, and the junior branch probably lived in their more important castle at Llanstephan. On the death of Sir John Penrice in 1410 the manors of Oxwich and Penrice passed to the Mansel family, through the marriage of his sister Isabella to Hugh Mansel; Sir John's brothers, William and Morgan, having died childless. Sir John's death in 1410 did not, however, result in the Penrice family becoming extinct. According to a late 15th century pedigree of the family,36 Robert Penrice (the holder of Llanstephan Castle in 1391) left descendants. A Richard Penrice appears even to have gained possession of Penrice in 1463 from Philip Mansel (great-grandson of the above Hugh) 37 though this was probably a collusive action with the Mansels to save Penrice from forfeiture, for at that time Philip Mansel was in danger of being attainted as a supporter of the House of Lancaster. This Richard Penrice is never heard of again and in 1485 Philip Mansel's son recovered all his father's estates, including Penrice, without any trouble. Another Richard de Penres, possibly a younger brother of the Robert who was attainted in 1377, was a witness to a deed of Thomas Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick and Lord of Gower, at Salwarpe in Worcestershire in 1379.38 This association is, perhaps, significant for the 1634 Heralds' Visitation of Worcestershire recorded a Penrice family, bearing the same coat-of-arms as the Gower family, at Crowe in Worcestershire. From this Worcestershire family, via London and Norfolk, descended the Penrice family which returned to Gower in the nineteenth century and lived at Kilvrough. The Oxwich tomb is thus a monument to Sir John Penrice, the last of that family to hold Oxwich, and Margaret Fleming his wife. It would thus seem that the local folk name for the tomb, the 'Doolamur's Hole', now needs a new explanation. A similar sounding name was recorded by the Rev. Davies at Llangenydd, also in Gower, where an effigy of a knight, formerly in a niche on the south side of the nave, but now at the back of the church near the font, was called the 'Dolly Mare' .39 This effigy was also supposed by Davies to be a member of the de la Mare family. In addition to their holding at Oxwich the de la Mares also held land at Llangenydd. In the first half of the 13th century Sir Robert Penrice