bullet3 !811: Fenton's tour

A Historical Tour Through Pembrokeshire

Richard Fenton 1811

Itinarary 7

From Pembroke by the West Gate round Castle Martin Coastwise, and back again by the East Gate-Monkton-'Dry Burrows -• Tumuli - Orielton - Castleton - Crowpooi- Henllan-Pwllcrochon-Rhds crowther-Nangle-Blockhouse-Castle Martin-Merian


Richard Fenton was born in St Davids in January 1747.  He was educated at the Cathedral School, Haverford West Grammar School and Magdalen College Oxford.  He was admitted to the Bar in January 1783, and from his London base in the Temple was associated with contemporary political and literary figures.  


Leaving the magnificent ruins of Pembroke, I take my road through Monkton, from the height of which, a look back on the turreted grandeur behind you is amply repaid, for a nobler view can hardly meet the eye.

Nothing occurs of note to arrest the attention till I reach Dry Burrows, a furzy moor covered with tumuli, the largest group I ever recollect to have seen in this county, as the spot never seems to have undergone cultivation since those sepulchral mounds were raised over the ashes of the heroes they cover. In a few of the fields near, which for ages have felt the influence of the plough, and are intersected by fences in different directions, several others, originally part of the same cluster before the land was enclosed and reclaimed, though now considerably lowered and softened down, are discoverable as if it had been the principal mausoleum of the early inhabitants of this country, it being very unusual in any other part of it to see so many together. It would be highly interesting to have this group opened under the eye of those accustomed to such curious researches, and thoroughly explored, to compare their contents with those of similar groups on the downs of Wiltshire, by way of ascertaining their age, and by their contents, the progress of civilization, the people then inhabiting Pembrokeshire had arrived at. But this is too great an undertaking for a private individual to attempt, and though it bids fair to unlock more valuable documents than the time, the patience and expense bestowed in unrolling the Herculeaneum fragments may produce, there is no prospect of its ever being successfully accomplished till that era shall chance to arrive, when the now despised pursuits of the indefatigable antiquary shall be more justly appreciated-when neither the man of fortune, the man of letters, nor the philosopher shall think it unworthy of them boldly to stand forth his patrons, and give facility and encouragement to labours best calculated to furnish the noblest entertainment, as social creatures we are capable of, by affording us an opportunity of tracing the history of our species by the progress of the human mind, from the first rude efforts of art, barely ministring to subsistence in the Cimmerian dawn of population to the broad blaze of intellectual day, which the British character in the highest degree of social refinement, stamping the " Lords of human kind " now displays, and which by such contrast we more exultingly feel and acknowledge.

To the left of the Dry Burrows, this death-devoted waste, dotted with the simple, yet durable, monuments of the early ages, on a rising ground in the midst of no inconsiderable growth for this country exposed to the western ocean, stands Orielton, a mansion that has maintained high rank for centuries. It is probable that it was originally inhabited by some powerful follower of Arnulph de Montgomery, of the name of Oriel, a name now almost worn out, and only found among the vulgar. As far back as the reign of Henry the Second, it was possessed by a man of note, of the name of Wyrriott, whose descendants continued to occupy it till the reign of Queen Elizabeth, when, by the marriage of Sir Hugh Owen, Knt., with the sole heiress of that great estate, Elizabeth Wyrriott, it changed the name of its owner. Sir Hugh Owen was a younger son of the ancient house of Bodeon in the Isle of Anglesea, descended from Hwva ap Cynddelw (1), one of the fifteen tribes of North Wales, and being brought up a barrister, by attending the Carmarthen circuit, became recorder of Carmarthen, and what was of more importance, master of Orielton. His grandson, by marrying his cousin, the heiress of Bodeon, united the estates ; but though it has been said that their North Wales property then exceeded what they had in Pembrokeshire and in other parts of South Wales, Orielton continued to be their chief residence, where they intermarried with the first families, and shared the highest honours of the county. The first baronet of the family was created Aug. 11, 1641, and Sir Hugh Owen is the sixth (2).

Here I turn to the right, passing Castleton, though now but a farm-house, formerly the residence of one of the earliest Advent, named Castle, whose daughter and sole heiress Mabel, married Sir Stephen Perrot, a descendant of a family who, by their marriages, concentrated at one time all the greatest inheritances of the county.

Still here and there are observed faint remains of tumuli, part of the Dry Burrows group, before the neighbouring farms were reclaimed from the waste.

From this height, to the right, may be traced the course of the navigation from Pen-narmouth up to the town of Pembroke. The entrance at the mouth, or opening between rock and rock, is but two hundred yards broad at high water, and one hundred and twelve yards at low water, and from nine to twelve feet deep. Just opposite to the entrance the estuary expands into a wide oozy reach, called Crowpool, where Lewis Morris, in his survey, says a dock might be made large enough to contain all the vessels in England, and would perhaps be the greatest thing in the world of that kind. Though the coast of Pembrokeshire is famous for its shell-fish of every kind, particularly oysters, yet here are inexhaustible beds productive of a species of the latter, whose superior excellence is universally admitted, and supplying them in such abundance, as to render them a very cheap luxury.

(1) He was the first of the fifteen tribes, and lived in the time of Owen Gwynedd, Prince of North Wales. His office, by inheritance, was to bear the prince's coronet, and to put it upon his head when the Bishop of Bangor anointed him.-Cambrian Register, vol. i. p. 145.

(2) Since writing the above, by the death of Sir Hugh Owen, the house of Orielton has once more changed its master, the late baronet having, by will, bequeathed to his kinsman John Lord, Esq., his name and fortune, in whose possession that venerable seat of his ancestors is likely to lose nothing of its highly respectable character.

Descend by Henllan, one of the few places that, in the midst of the incroaching and innovating Normans, stiffly preserved its original British name, and continued to be inhabited for several generations by the successive descendants of a genuine Welsh family from the princely line of Gwynfardd Dyved, till, in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, Jenkin White, of Tenby, married one of the daughters and co-heiresses of Jenkin ap Einion, in her right of this house, the last descendant of which White, being heiress likewise of Bangeston, married first, Thomas Lort, Esq., secondly, Lord Bulkeley, thirdly, Brigadier Ferrars, and lastly, Mr. Hook, and died without issue.

Hence, to Pwllcrochon Church-yard, situated on a small creek of Milford Haven, in which a memorable skirmish took place between the king's and the parliament forces, which, in a letter dated March 28, 1648, is thus described : -

" Last Tuesday a little before night the two companies sent from Bristol landed near HSnllan, and on Wednesday were set on by two troops of horse and about one hundred foot of Foyer's, in Pvvllcrochon Church-yard, but they maintained the place, and are not taken, but on condition to march away with their arms to Cardiff, and not to land again in Milford. H6nllan-house the same day beset, Mr. White (the then possessor of it) Mr. Roger Lort, Adjutant-general Fleming, and other commissioners met there, escaping on shipboard. Hugh Butler, a grand malignant, commanded the foot. A drummer came from the enemy in (3) Wales, and had in his hat, as most of them have, ' We long to see our king.' "

On one of the corner-stones of the north-aisle is the following inscription coarsely cut

A.D.   1342.     ERAT ISTA ECCLESIA CONSTRUCTA

DE NOVO CUM CAPPELLA ISTA PER RADULPHUM BENEGER QUI REXIT ECCLESIAM  PER  ANNOS ..........

This Ralph Beneger, the rebuilder of the church, lies buried on the south side of it between the door and the belfry, where is now seen his effigy in his canonical habit, under an arched canopy, with this inscription on the edge of the stone : -

HIC JACET RADULPHUS BENEGER HUJUS ECCLESIA RECTOR;

And on a tablet in the wall above, the following monkish lines :-

QUI TRANSIS PER EUM,  SAEPE PRECARE DEUM,

UT SIBI SANCTORUM DET GAUDIA SUMMAE POLORUM ;                                     

ECCLESIAM REXIT, CONSTRUXIT, ET BENE TEXIT

AC ALIAS AEDES, IN COELIS SIT SIBI SEDES.


{3) That is, I presume, from the upper parts of Pembrokeshire, the Welsh parts, Castle Martin and Roos, being called little England beyond Wales.


The Benegers, the original proprietors of Benegerstown, afterwards contracted to Bangeston, were men of great note in this neighbourhood, whom I have seen often mentioned in ancient legal instruments as having great possessions, but the name has been long extinct in this county. A branch of it was one of the adventurers in the suite of Strongbow on the Irish expedition, who, perhaps, might have laid the foundation of a family of that name in Ireland. There is a tradition of a chapel at the eastern extremity of this parish, called St. Mahoney, the Irish for St. Matthew, probably a hermitage, Ireland having furnished the coast of Wales, in return for St. Patrick, a host in himself, an infinite number of saintlings.

Rhoscrowther, which gives name to the next parish, like all the churches in this district, is dignified with a handsome tower, and from its whole exterior has a claim on some notice, as likely to contain within memorials of the mighty dead, who, when living, are known to have resided within its limits, I therefore could not think of overlooking it; but to stop here I had another still stronger inducement, to experience the hospitality of the worthy rector, the Rev. James Bowen, my relation, who, in a most delightful retreat here in the bosom of his family, consisting of three amiable daughters, whose attentions and accomplishments are devoted to his happiness, at an advanced time of life, yet feeling none of the inconveniences of age, seems to enjoy as much comfort as ever fell to the lot of a parent, and may be truly said to " sink to the grave with unperceived decay." And if any thing could add to this charming domestic scene, it is to recollect that I was fortunate enough to be accompanied on the excursion by a gentleman whom I am proud of the honour of calling my friend, Matthew Campbell, Esq., whose generous mind, ever in unison with the noblest feelings of our nature, was capable of relishing a treat which hospitality, taste, and filial duty united to produce, and which made us " forget all time."

Notwithstanding the pride of heraldry was displayed in different escutcheons over the porch door leading to the church, and other external ornaments, yet within I found no champion of the cross or other warrior niched there in effigy, as might have been expected from the importance of its vicinity; two or three figures of ecclesiastics, not ill sculptured, met the eye, without arms or epitaph to lead to any knowledge of the family, age, or rank; and of whom no traditional record was preserved.

At the distance of a quarter of a mile from the church stands Jestingtown, or as it is commonly called Iseston, for many years the residence of the family of Meares, and now the property of John Meares, Esq., to whose family, I believe, it came by purchase. Here a branch of the royal family of Wales flourished before the conquest in the person of Jestyn, grandson of Howel Dda, who was of that place, and called it after his name. Elen, daughter of a descendant of his, Meirchion ap Rhys ap Rhydderch ap Jestyn, married Sir Stephen Perrott, the first Norman of that name who settled in this county, who had by this alliance vast possessions and great increase of power and command. It seems to have been once castellated, though very little of the original building exists, but that little clearly proves it to have been of a form to entitle it to the name of Castle. The Perrotts for some centuries continued to inhabit it, till their union with Haroldstone, near Haverfordwest, when they appear to have abandoned this venerable residence on the haven. From the proximity of the ancient palace to the church, probably founded by some of its princely possessors, I had reason to suppose that some of its inhabitants would have contributed to the sepulchral consequence of its aisles, yet it is not here only that I have been disappointed in the like expectations, having observed in numerous instances, how few monumental memorials remain of the great chieftains of this country in the church or chapels contiguous to the vill or the castle they were lords of, or to the mansions they are said to have occupied ; and I have no other way of accounting for it, than by supposing that, as they were chiefly warriors, most of them died in battle in the holy, or other foreign wars, and that very few died in peace at home, or if they did, that they affected the honour of being interred, either in the cathedral of St. David's, or within the walls of some great abbey or other religious house, with whose suppression, and under whose ruins, their memorials have been overwhelmed. As to the Welsh before the coming in of the Normans and long after, monumental pride was unknown to them; the chief and his vassal lay together, and one equal verdure marked their grassy sods: the only monument they aspired to was the song of the bard, which has survived the fate of the " storied urn, or an imated bust," for

" Solum non cederit aevo,

Periturum non sine mundo

Opus indelebile muaee."

There is a well arched over not far from the church, called formerly Saint Degman's, or Decuman's, to which great virtues were ascribed proportionable to the fame of the saint it was dedicated to, who might also have been the patron of the church ; of whose sanctity Capgrave and Cressy tell miraculous stories.

Skirting the bay of Nangle, I come to the village of that namt, so called from being as it were, in angulo, in a nook. It is large, and bears evident marks of its former consequence. The Sherburnes were the ancient lords of the vill, whose daughter and co-heiress married Robert Cradock, Lord of Newton in Roos. His descendant, Sir Richard Cradock, married the heiress of Jestington, changed his name to Newton, and dying chief justice of the common pleas, was buried at (4) Bristol. Robert de Vale, Lord of Dale, where in his castle he resided, had property in this village ; for in a very ancient deed in my possession, he grants lands in Angulo to Stephen the son of Alexander, so that Sherborne might have succeeded him in this property by marrying one of his daughters.

The church stands nearly in the centre of the village, and without makes a very respectable appearance; but within, contains no ancient monument or anything very remarkable. On the south side there is an old arched aisle, which, from the aperture in its roof, seems to have been a belfry ; on one side there is a canopied recess covering a shelf, where formerly a recumbent figure might have lain. Against the south wall there is a handsome monument of the late Brigadier Ferrars, third husband of the husband-killing heiress of Bangeston, with escutcheons bearing his own arms and those of White and Dawes in right of his lady. I also observed, stuck against a wall in the inside of the church, the sculptured figure of a man very small, in an attitude so odd and ludicrous, as to make it difficult to account for its introduction into this sacred place; and in the church-yard the effigy of a priest almost covered with the sward, much effaced, and un-inscribed. In the north-east corner of the cemetery is a neat little building, ascended by steps, with an arched roof, and built over a vault, lying due east and west, which, from its position, I suspect to have been an oratory or chantry chapel. This church was enumerated among the many benefices engrossed by Giraldus, and no doubt a rich one then, to be worth his acceptance.


(4) In Bristol Cathedral at the lower end of the south aisle against the east wall is an ancient tomb of grey marble, on which once were placed the effigies of two persons kneeling, and an inscription on brass underneath them, and their arms behind their heads ; but to whom they belonged was unknown till from a MS. in Bennet Coll. Library, Cambridge, it was discovered that the monument had been erected to the memory of Sir Richard Newton Cradock, who died Dec. 13, 1444, chief justice of the common pleas. This, with the founder's grave-stone, are the only monuments that had brass inscriptions and effigies belonging to them.

John Newton, a descendant of the chief justice of Barscote or Barrscourt, in Gloucestershire, was created a baronet Aug. 16, 1660, but the title is now extinct.


To the north of a little brook running behind the church-yard are the remains of a considerable building with a square tower very picturesque, covered with ivy, called the Castle, said to have been the principal residence of the Sherbornes, the lords of the place, and now converted into an inn called the Castle Inn. Above it, in a field, is a large pigeon-house, built tower fashion, having a conical roof, the invariable appendage of most houses of any pretensions in such parts of this county as the Nomans and Flemings had overrun. To the south-west of the church-yard, close at the back of the southern row of houses in.the village, are seen the ruins of a very handsome building, having large pointed side window cased with stone, as if it had been part of a religious structure. The tradition is, that three sisters, co-heiresses, built each of them a house, one the castle, another the above building, and the third a mansion a little way out of the village to the south-east, called the Hall, which appears, in its day, to have been very respectable, and belonged, till of late years, to a family of the name of Kinnar, a name that still exists in the village. But I am more disposed to give credit to Mr. Canon Lewis's account as communicated in a letter to Browne Willis, Jan. 12, 1719, who says, when noting what is worthy of observation in the deanery of Pembroke (5), " There is at Nangle yet standing entire, an old square building said to have been a nunnery." To the west of the village in a field, to this day called Church Field, may clearly be traced the site of a chapel, or probably the (6) original church, before the present was erected, called St. Mary's, as having had a large cemetery extending to the shore below it, on whose shivery banks that bounded it, as they are gradually washed away by the tide, graves and stone coffins appear.


(5) Bod. MSS.

(6) On a high point of land much worn by the sea, adjoining this field, are entrenchments, which may relate to the piratical incursions of the Danes, whose pagan fury, this church, from its proximity to their place of descent, was so very liable to, and therefore might have been removed to the spot where it now stands, a situation more recessed and out of their reach.


Hence, I proceed along the coast to inspect the block-house, a singular building on the very edge of a horrid precipice overhanging the sea, fronting another on a similar point of land on the Dale side of Milford, which exhibits a specimen of most excellent masonry, as it has an immense projecting fragment far out of the perpendicular, kept up entirely by the strength of its cement, that seems harder than the stone itself. To what use these buildings were applied, or at what time, or by whom built, yet remains a doubt; George Owen, in a MS, account of Milford, ascribing them to Henry the Eighth ; and Lewis Morris to Queen Elizabeth, but more reliance should be placed on the deliberate testimony of the former, than the vague tradition echoed by the latter. For if they had been erected in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, a man of George Owen's research and observation, who lived at that time, could never have been so mistaken, especially as he was employed by his relation the Earl of Pembroke to make a (7} survey, and draw up an exact account of Milford Haven, and every thing appertaining it. Though the building in its present form altogether might have been of the age of Henry, yet from the peculiar construction of some parts of it, and the quality of the cement in every respect resembling that which is found in all the buildings known to be Roman in Britain, I am strongly inclined to think that something had been begun there by the Romans for the security of that harbour, whose importance we can hardly suppose them to have been ignorant of. Indeed, I have already noted the traces of a Roman road that led from Menapia, or Menevia, near the present St. David's coastwise to Dale, where the opposite Block-house stands, and Carausius, that great naval commander, and a native of the country, was likely to have made a just estimate of the advantages of such a harbour as Milford, and to have taken all the necessary steps for its protection and improvement, and opening a communication with it.

To the south-west of the Block-house was Sheep Island, insulated at full sea. The point of peninsular land that it connects with is separated from the main land by a very deep foss, where in Queen Elizabeth's time stood the remnant of a tower, built to guard the pass ; and from this point you may go dry to Sheep Island, but not without difficulty, at half ebb. The tradition is, that this was a place of retreat for the new Norman settlers to save themselves and their cattle from the fury of the incensed natives during their desultory skirmishes, but it is more likely to have been a Danish work originally, and afterwards made subservient to the purposes of the latter invaders, whose addition the tower, mentioned by George Owen (8), might have been.


(7) This curious document I have in my possession, a MS. presented to me by my friend H. P. Wyndham, Esq., of the College, Salisbury, to whom 1 am happy in an opportunity of publicly acknowledging my obligations for that and numerous other instances of his polite attention. The above MS. together with several others of that ingenious and indefatigable antiquary Geo. Owen, I have intentions of soon publishing, which, I flatter myself, will prove a most valuable accession to topographical literature.


(8) Geo. Owen's MSS.


Leaving on the left what once was Bangeston, I turn with regret from the mere shell of a mansion so lately remembered, the seat of hospitality, and one of the first note in Pembrokeshire, from its original Norman founder through successive generations, to its latest resident, and cannot help making the melancholy observation, that in several parts of this county mansions frequently occur in ruins, some abandoned for others more suited to the taste or the views of the different owners, many by falling to heiresses, who have conferred their hands and property on strangers, but the far greater number owing to the vicissitude of human affairs, and the precariousness of human possessions, by falling to the share of men of yesterday, the mushrooms of fortune at home, or returned from abroad with the plunder of the east, who, even if they do not lay out their money on speculation, have neither the spirit nor the taste to revive the honours of the houses they purchase ; but after eviscerating the devoted mansion, and uncovering it to the elements, rob its very walls for their hedges and their farm-houses, leaving not a tree or ivy-mantled tower to stand, and serving the very owl with an ejectment, till, to gratify the latent levelling principle which, I fear, too often stimulates to such devastation, the hateful spot, the scene of aristocratic pride, becomes one undignified cheerless blank.

A little way farther on, cross an extensive tract of sandy burrows, in the centre of which stands a Cromlech resting on two upright stones, the third being overturned. There seemed to have been a low circular agger of earth raised round it, of no inconsiderable area. This is the only druidical relic of the kind I have observed in Castle Martin, such monuments being much less frequent in the lower part of the country than they appear to be near the mountains ; but this may be accounted for in some measure by this district having from an early age undergone much more cultivation than the more northern part of Pembrokeshire, where the land every where exhibits large portions of wild rocky ground, incapable almost of melioration, yet productive of such gigantic masses of stones as their mystic structures required, and where they are on that account most generally found.

After traversing this extensive sandy tract, thickly stocked with rabbits, descend by Corson to Stenbrigge, the western limit of the privileges of Pembroke under its original charter, the eastern being Lanphey Ford, the northern Pembroke Ferry, the southern Pencoyt (grossa fossa de Pencoyt). The mansion of Corson, or more properly Corsetown, takes its name from its situation on a gentle slope abo.ve Castle Martin Corse, or bog, Corse in British being the name for bog. About twenty years ago this Corse was inclosed by act of parliament, affording a most encouraging specimen of the advantages to be derived from such a species of improvement on lands of similar quality, yet suffered to remain a reproach to their proprietors. The soil of this reclaimed tract having been the rich deposit of ages, requires no manure, and if it has a fault, it is, that it sends up too rank and luxuriant a vegetation. It is the property of Lord Cawdor.

Ascend to the village of Castle Martin, where the site of what is called the Castle, on one side presenting an agger with a rounded angle, similar to that which always marks a Roman station, at first view excites a doubt as to its origin, but more minutely examined, it proves to be decidedly an ancient British earthwork, on which one of the Norman chiefs who swayed this district, and whom our deeds sometimes mention with the addition of " De Castle Martin," raised his baronial residence, giving it as was their fashion a castellated form, as at two angles of the irregular square are yet discoverable the truncated relics of the bastions, the vestigia of the castle, then probably not so faint, that Leland alludes to when he mentions this spot.