Welsh Journals

A NEW REPLY TO LHWYD'S Parochial Queries (1696): PUNCHESTON, PEMBROKESHIRE Fifty years ago the Welsh material collected at first hand by Edward Lhwyd in the 1690*8 was being prepared for publication. It was edited by the late Canon R. H. Morris, and called Parochialia, being a Summary of Answers to 'Parochial Queries in order to a Geographical Dictionary etc, of Wales', issued by Edward Lhwyd.1 Although a generous selection of Lhwyd's letters has been made known since Parochialia, notably by the late Dr. R. T. Gunther, so far as the writer is aware there has been no addition to the number of parish descriptions printed by the Cambrians in 1000-11. A new reply, however, came to light recently in the Bodleian Library, Oxford, and since it occurs in one of the manuscript collections edited by Canon Morris as the third part of Parochialia, one can only assume that in some way it escaped his keen notice. The reply is for Puncheston in northern Pembrokeshire, a parish extending to the lower flanks of Mynydd Preseli, and is MS. Ashmole 1820a, fo. 169; a further note occurs in fo. 280. Unlike the majority of replies in that volume, it is not written on the printed form of Parochial Queries which Lhwyd circulated through the length and breadth of Wales. Instead of appearing in the appropriate space on the questionnaire, the Puncheston replies (headed Tontcheston pish') were written on both sides of a sheet of paper seven inches by nine, and they answered fifteen of the thirty-one sets of questions asked by Lhwyd. The Queries were designed to provide a record of local knowledge and belief and discovery which Lhwyd could absorb into his own researches. They covered the geography, antiquities and natural history of Wales. The set of replies for Puncheston were neatly and clearly written, and since they were unsigned the handwriting had to be the means of deciding their authorship. It was thought likely that their author was the Rev. Alexander Forde (1664-1723), well known to Lhwyd and Rector of Puncheston at the time of his enquiries; most of the replies in Parochialia were made by the incumbents of parishes. Forde became Rector of Remenham, near Henley-on-Thames in Berkshire, in 1709, and it was necessary only to establish his handwriting in the Remenham registers and then compare it with the Puncheston reply. The present Rector, the Rev. A. G. L. Pettit, very kindly examined the records and found that in 1707, two years before the death of Carswell, Forde's predecessor, there appeared a handwriting that corresponds exactly with that used in the description of Puncheston. It continued at intervals until 1720, when it was replaced by that of Gunnis, who succeeded Forde as Rector of Remenham. It seems that Gunnis was serving the parish for some time before he became Rector in 1723. He recorded Forde's death at Remenham on 18 March 1722/23, and his burial on 20 March; although he did not state that Forde was buried there, 1 Parochialia appeared as supplements to Archaeologia Cambrensis in April 1909, 1910, and June 1911; it pre- sented the descriptions of 146 parishes in Wales and the March, but cannot be regarded as a complete record since other descriptions forwarded to Lhwyd were either destroyed in later years or have become lost.