Thu, March 13th, 2025
Whatever happened to the village of Penarth?
Posted in the News Category
News
On Thursday 13th March in the Parish Hall, Albert Road, 80 people listened to Chris Riley giving a talk on the original village of Penarth, what is was, where it was and what still survives.
The area was originally owned by the Austin Canons in Bristol and in the 12th century there are written references to the church in Penarth. This was a mainly agricultural community working a three-yearly field rotation system. Every third year a field was left fallow to recover and was manured by the animals that had fed there. The Kymin area was common land. Agriculture was the main industry and way of life. There was also some fishing but Penarth was never a fishing village.
In the 1500s the population was around 50-80. After the suppression of the monasteries some of the land was in private hands with some large farms including Rogersmoor and Cwrt-y-Vil farms.
Information about Penarth in later centuries came from legal sources (e.g. court documents) and from land surveys carried out by the Plymouth family in the 17th century. Some of the land was owned by Bristol Cathedral but by the 19th century there were more tenanted farms and smallholdings.
The early 19th century marked the beginning of the end of Penarth’s existence as a village. Industry was being developed in the valleys and Penarth’s population was still in the 80s.
In the 1850s the docks were built and the population of Penarth and Cogan expanded from about 140 in 1851 to about 1,700 in 1861.
What remains of the original village?
The basic road system and road names (Lavernock Road and Parish Road (now Albert Road and Stanwell Road)); the churchyard and glebe land names; the Dingle and woods; Bute Cottage; West House and the Kymin: Cwrt-y-Vil area; Lower Penarth Farm House.
It was an interesting talk illustrated by maps and was enjoyed by all.
Discussion Area - Submit a comment
Man Trafod - Rhowch sylwad yma
Your reply will be moderated and not appear immediately. You can prepare your text in a word processor before pasting it into the box, but formatting such as bold and colour will not appear.
Bydd eich ateb yn cael ei cymedroli, ac ni fydd yn ymaddangos yn syth. Medrwch paratoi eich tecst yn y rhaglen word cyn ei rhoi yn y bocs, ond ni fydd elfennau megis trwmder tecst a lliw yn ymddangos.