Abergwili, Carmarthenshire

Historical Description

Abergwilly or Abergwili, a village and a parish in the district and county of Carmarthen. The village stands at the confluence of the Gwili with the Towy, 1½ mile NE of Carmarthen. It has a station on the Central Wales and Carmarthen Junction of the L. & N.W.R., and a post office (R.S.O.) under Carmarthen. Cattle fairs are held on 4 May and 2 and 27 Oct. The palace of the Bishop of St David's, an edifice in the Tudor style, is adjacent. Merlin's Hill, an eminence on the side of a dell, nearly 1½ mile above the village, is said to have been the birthplace and the favourite haunt of the sorcerer Merlin, and a rocky cavity near its summit still bears the name of Merlin's Chair. The living is a vicarage in the diocese of St David's —, net value, £340, including the proceeds of the curacy of Llanfihangel. Patron, the Bishop of St David's. The present church is a handsome edifice in the Early English style, with a spire. A small sub-parochial church stands at Llanfihangel-Uwchgwilly, and is served by a perpetual curate. A new church was erected in 1888 at a cost of £1300, on the site of an old pre-Reformation chapel, and is called Capel-y-groes, the Church of the Holy Cross. There are Congregational, Baptist, and Calvinistic Methodist chapels. Acreage, 8395; population, 1640.

Administration

The following is a list of the administrative units in which this place was either wholly or partly included.

Any dates in this table should be used as a guide only.

Civil Registration

For general information about Civil Registration (births, marriages and deaths) see the Civil Registration page.

For births, marriages, and deaths in Abergwili from 1837 to 1974 you should search for the Carmarthen Registration District.

Directories & Gazetteers

We have transcribed the entry for Abergwili from the following:

• Kelly's Directory of Monmouthshire and South Wales, 1895

Land and Property

The Return of Owners of Land in 1873 for Carmarthenshire is available to browse.

Maps

Online maps of Abergwili are available from a number of sites:

• Bing (Current Ordnance Survey maps).
• Google Streetview.
• National Library of Scotland. (Old maps)
• OpenStreetMap.
• old-maps.co.uk (Old Ordnance Survey maps to buy).
• Streetmap.co.uk (Current Ordnance Survey maps).
• A Vision of Britain through Time. (Old maps)

Newspapers and Periodicals

The British Newspaper Archive have fully searchable digitised copies of the following newspapers online:

• South Wales Daily News
• The Cardiff Times
• Western Mail
• Carmarthen Weekly Reporter