England & Wales Hardwicke Marriage Index
Marriages 1754 - 1837
Penrhos St Cadoc

The Parish

The parish of Penrhos lies in northern Monmouthshire roughly 6 miles west of the county town of Monmouth and just over 2 miles north of the smaller town of Raglan. Penrhos sits within an area devoid of significant numbered roads, the closest being the A40 which runs past raglan en route from Monmouth to Abergavenny. Penrhos is a scattered community with no real village defined, a small group of properties lie by the church but otherwise the wider parish is covered with isolated farmsteads and cottages. The soils are underlay here by Devonian Old Red Sandstone which gives a characteristic colour to the land, it also creates a clay-rich soil restricting much of the farming to pastoral methods with cattle a speciality. Penrhos is drained eastwards by a small brook, the Nant Washan, which soon meets the River Trothy, the latter too keeps heading east before finally meeting the Wye at Monmouth and water here turns south to reach the outer Bristol Channel through the port of Chepstow. Penrhos os sited, at the church, at around 80 metres above the sea in gently rolling countryside, land rises steadily northwards reaching a spot height of 107 at a Norman Motte & Bailey site just south of the Offa's Dyke National Trail which skirts the northern edges of Penrhos parish. Parishes in this pastoral area are often larger than most, Penrhos parish covered 2,699 acres and would have supported a population of close to 350 parishioners. Like most of Wales Penrhos is not mentioned in Domesday Book which has no coverage west of Monmouth.

The Church

St Cadoc's church stands on the eastern side of the meandering lane which heads from Llantilio Crossenny to Tregare, it stands together with the old vicarage and a farm or two. Pevsner is right to state that the earliest portions of this church are hard to date such has been the changes wrought since first construction. The earliest pieces that he identifies are the two main supporting arches of the structure, the tower and chancel arches; both are Perpendicular in style and probably date from the late 14th or early 15th centuries. Similar Perpendicular style windows are found in both nave and chancel so we can assume that the main body was complete by the 15th century. At the western end of the church is an unbuttressed tower which Pevsner dates to c1600, a Tudor structure of unusual date in those turbulent times. A more certain date is that of the typical Victorian restoration which here took place in 1878, as well as a general refresh that work added the lean-to northern aisle and the southern porch. The lane which passes the church is very narrow but a wider spot exists at the southern end of the site where a footpath, signed, enters the churchyard and where a car might safely squeeze in. There are close trees mainly to the north but also impeding the views of the tower from the southwest, photographers will need a little time to find the better aspects.