Llawhaden
Llawhaden is a village and parish in the Hundred of Dungleddy, Pembrokeshire. The civil community also includes Robeston Wathen and part of Narberth, and had a population of 634 in 2001.
The name Llawhaden is an anglicised version of the Welsh-language form Llanhuadain, and probably means "(monastic) enclosure of St Aidan".[1] The village is in the form of a large mediæval planned settlement, although most of the land lots laid out along the main street are now vacant. At the end of the main street, spectacularly overlooking the Cleddau valley, is a substantial castle, Llawhaden Castle.[2] The parish church of St Aidan (of Ferns, a disciple of Saint David) is situated below the village beside the river, at 51°49’21"N, 4°47’40"W.
The village and castle were created and owned by the Bishops of St David's. The village was once a marcher borough. Owen, in 1603, described it as one of nine Pembrokeshire "boroughs in decay".[3]
The parish straddles the Landsker Line, and was one of the six "bilingual" parishes mentioned by George Owen in 1603.[4] The parish is divided east-west into two unequal parts by the Eastern Cleddau river, and this has been a fairly stable language boundary at least since Owen's time, with English speakers to the west and Welsh speakers to the east, although, perhaps in the early Industrial Revolution, Welsh-speakers infiltrated the western part in the area around Gelli woolen mill.
The parish had population as follows:[5]
| Date | 1801 | 1831 | 1861 | 1891 | 1921 | 1951 | 1981 |
| Population | 371 | 657 | 647 | 547 | 458 | 402 | 336 |
Outside links
Notes
- ↑ Charles, B. G, The Placenames of Pembrokeshire, National Library of Wales, Aberystwyth, 1992, ISBN 0-907158-58-7, Vol II, p 420
- ↑ Castles of Wales
- ↑ Owen, George, The Description of Pembrokeshire by George Owen of Henllys Lord of Kemes, Henry Owen (Ed), London, 1892
- ↑ Owen, George, The Description of Pembrokeshire Dillwyn Miles (Ed) (Gomer Press, Llandysul 1994) ISBN 1-85902-120-4.
- ↑ OPCS Reports
