Penrice, Glamorgan
Historical Description
Penrice, a village and a parish in Glamorgan. The village stands near the W side of Oxwich Bay, in the Gower Peninsula, 9 miles W of Killay station on the L. & N.W.R., and 13 W of Swansea. It was once a market-town. Post town, Swansea; money order and telegraph office, Reynoldstone. The parish contains also the village of Horton, and comprises 2124 acres; population of the civil parish, 242; of the ecclesiastical, 270. The name Penrice was originally written Pen-rhys, applies properly to a headland of the parish, and was taken from Rhys-ab-Caradoc, who was killed here. Penrice Castle was built by the Earl of Warwick, to secure his acquisitions in Gower; passed to the Penrices, the Man-sells, and the Talbots; and is now a ruin, consisting chiefly of some large inwardly-rounded towers. A modern mansion, the seat of the Talbot family, stands adjacent to the ruins, embowered in wood, and was built in 1782 out of materials from Margam Abbey. Sanctuary Farm is the site of a nunnery founded in the reign of Henry III. The living is a vicarage in the diocese of St David's; net value, £80. The church is ancient and cruciform, has been restored, and is remarkable for the beauty of its situation. There is a "Wesleyan chapel at Horton.
Administration
The following is a list of the administrative units in which this place was either wholly or partly included.
Registration district | Swansea | 1837 - 1858 |
Registration district | Gower | 1858 - 1934 |
Registration district | West Glamorgan | 1935 - 1974 |
Any dates in this table should be used as a guide only.
Church Records
Findmypast, in conjunction with the National Library of Wales and the Welsh County Archivists Group, have the following parish records online for Penrice:
Parish | Baptisms | Banns | Marriages | Burials |
---|---|---|---|---|
Penrice | 1638-1891 | 1763-1763 | 1632-1926 | 1653-1980 |
Maps
Online maps of Penrice 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: