England & Wales Hardwicke Marriage Index
Marriages 1754 - 1837
Llanddewi Fach St David

The Parish

The parish of Llanddewi Fach lies in the southwestern portion of central Monmouthshire, modern day Gwent, roughly 3 miles due east of the new town of Cwmbran and a similar distance southwest of the market town of Usk. Llanddewi Fach sits a little under 2 miles east of the A4042 road which links Pontypool with Newport. Modern day Llanddewi Fach is a tiny place with no real defined village at all, merely a scatter of farms & cottages across the wider parish sitting between the twin brooks of the Candwr & Sor Brooks. Much of the area is used for cattle grazing with tiny fields sitting on the rich red soils of the sandstone that underlies the area. Those twin brooks drain the parish southeastwards merging into the Afon Lligwy and almost immediately into the Usk before reaching the outer Bristol Channel through Newport. Llanddewi Fach is sited at around 60 metres above the sea in rolling countryside, to the east of the Sor Brook land rises more dramatically to local high points of 184 metres. At around 1,350 acres Llanddewi Fach parish was toward the smaller end of the scale for its county, within that acreage it would have supported a population of close to 150 parishioners. Like most of Wales Llanddewi Fach is not mentioned in Domesday Book which did not cover this area.

The Church

St David's was deconsecrated and converted to a private house in the 1990s with obvious restrictions on access. The church sits above the Sor Brook in a circular "llan", an ancient Christian site, at the end of a long dead-end lane leading northeast from Tre-Herbert Road. Sadly the medieval church which sat here was almost totally rebuilt, Pevsner calls it reconstructed, in the mid 1850s so it would be largely unrecognisable to the participants in these marriages. The medieval predecessor probably dated from the 12th or 13th century and showed modifications in the 15th century to incorporate Perpendicular style designs. Today's church is a simple nave & chancel topped at its western end by a tall bellcote. Given the location as the only building at the end of that lane and its present private status care and consideration should be the watchword at any visit.