Cwmifor Explained

Cwmifor is a small village in Carmarthenshire.[1] It is a part of the Manordeilo and Salem community and is located between Llandeilo and Llandovery, near the A40.

The village consists of a number of dispersed farmhouses, most of which were built in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. In the twentieth century, a number of small houses were built near to the A40, transforming the village into a 'small nucleated settlement'.[2]

History

It is likely that the name Cwmifor derived from a person's name ('Cwm Ifor' means "Ifor's Valley"). An extensive Neolithic (4000–2200 BC) occupation site comprising numerous pits and post-holes, with finds of burnt bone, flints and charcoal, was recorded at Cwmifor.[3] [4]

A Roman road known as the Via Julia ran east to west at the northern extremity of the settlement.[5] A turnpike road was established in the eighteenth century and followed the line of the Roman road although the course through Cwmifor was straightened under Thomas Telford in the 1820s.[6]

A meeting of a group of Rebecca Rioters took place in graveyard of village's Baptist Chapel in 1843 and was reported in The Times.[7] This is one of the few meetings of the Rebecca Rioters infiltrated by the press.

The village remained a dispersed settlement into the 1880s, with an Ordnance Survey map from 1886 showing a public house, a parish church, and a Baptist chapel. Several prominent farms and houses are also named on the map, many of which remain today (Cae Mawr, Pen-y-Waen, and Penhill).[8]

In 2002, Carmarthenshire Council earmarked the village primary school for closure. According to one report, the school had twenty three pupils at the time of the decision.[9] In 2007, it was reported on social media that the school had a total of seven pupils.[10]

Landmarks

St Paul's Church is a nineteenth-century church in Cwmifor. While it was originally designed as a Roman Catholic church, it became an Anglican chapel of ease once it was completed. The church is built of squared stone.

A Baptist chapel was built in 1789, enlarged in 1836 and renovated in 1864. It is built in the simple round-headed style with a long-wall entry plan.[11] The village hall, or reading room, is next door to St Paul's Church. Manordeilo and Salem Community Council meet in the village hall each month.[12]

References

51.9131°N -3.9503°W

Notes and References

  1. Web site:
    1. GetOutside: do more in the British Outdoors
    . 2021-05-09. OS GetOutside. en-gb.
  2. Web site: CWM-IFOR - MANORDEILO. live. 25 June 2021. Dyfed Archeological Trust. https://web.archive.org/web/20161122080902/http://www.dyfedarchaeology.org.uk:80/HLC/HLCTowy/area/area201.htm . 2016-11-22 .
  3. Web site: Dyfed Aarchaeology. live. 25 June 2021. Dyfed Archaeology. https://web.archive.org/web/20210625170701/https://dyfedarchaeology.org.uk/tywiimages/ETbrochure.pdf . 2021-06-25 .
  4. 2019. Neolithic Farming and Wild Plant Exploitation in Western Britain: Archaeobotanical and Crop Stable Isotope Evidence from Wales (c. 4000–2200 cal BC). Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society. 85. 193–222.
  5. Web site: View map: Carmarthenshire XXXIV.NW (includes: Llandeilo Fawr Rural; Llangadog.) - Ordnance Survey Six-inch England and Wales, 1842-1952. 2021-12-20. maps.nls.uk.
  6. Web site: Ystrad Tywi. live. 25 June 2021. Dyfed Archaeological Trust. https://web.archive.org/web/20210625170659/https://dyfedarchaeology.org.uk/HLC/HLCTowy/area/area196.htm . 2021-06-25 .
  7. Book: Evans, Henry Tobit . Rebecca and her daughters, being a history of the agrarian disturbances in Wales known as The Rebecca Riots. [Edited by G.T. Evans] ]. Evans . G. T. . 1910 . Cardiff Educational Pub. Co . Robarts - University of Toronto.
  8. Web site: View map: Carmarthenshire XXXIV.NW (includes: Llandeilo Fawr Rural; Llangadog.) - Ordnance Survey Six-inch England and Wales, 1842-1952. 2021-12-20. maps.nls.uk.
  9. Web site: 12 September 2002. Parents fight school closure plans. live. 25 June 2021. BBC News. https://web.archive.org/web/20021101094850/http://news.bbc.co.uk:80/1/hi/wales/2253284.stm . 2002-11-01 .
  10. Web site: Twitter. live. 25 June 2021. https://web.archive.org/web/20210708204213/https://twitter.com/positiveparents/status/5727437488914432 . 2021-07-08 .
  11. Web site: See Around Britain. live. 25 June 2021. https://web.archive.org/web/20210625170701/https://seearoundbritain.com/venues/welsh-baptist-chapel-cwmifor-carmarthenshire . 2021-06-25 .
  12. Web site: Manordeilo and Salem Community Council: Home . 2022-05-23 . manordeilosalemcc.org.uk.