England & Wales Hardwicke Marriage Index
Marriages 1754 - 1837
St Elvis

The Parish

The parish of St Elvis lies in western Pembrokeshire forming a stretch of the county's coastline with the Irish Sea. St Elvis is located roughly 4 miles east of the city of St Davids and stands immediately south of the A487 road which links St Davids with Haverfordwest. Today all that is left of St Elvis is a farm bearing its name, there is no village and, indeed, little remaining of its church. The parish would have been dominantly pastoral as the coastal setting and consequential salt-laden air would have precluded arable. An unsuccessful attempt to exploit silver deposits proved uneconomical and closed. The main claim to fame of this small parish its Neolithic burial chamber, now collapsed. The parish does received quite a few visitors as the Pembrokeshire Coastal Trail, now part of the Wales Coastal Trail, passes along the high cliffs east of the picturesque inlet of Solva. St Elvis was drained by small streams leading into the nearby River Solva and thus to the Irish Sea. St Elvis Farm stands at around 60 metres above the sea, heights of over the 90 metre contour are not uncommon inland of the A487. St Elvis parish was one of the smallest in its county covering merely 430 acres which would barely have supported fewer than 50 parishioners. Like most of Wales St Elvis is not mentioned in Domesday Book which did not cover this area.

The Church

The former church of St Elvis lay just south of today's St Elvis Farm, today it is merely a footprint of overgrown and derelict ruins. The church was small, roughly 35 feet in length and 17 wide and apparently had "no architectural features deserving of notice". Few marriages are recorded in its single surviving marriage register with most probably taking place at nearby Brawdy of Whitchurch.