Llangolman
Encyclopedia
Llangolman is a village
Village
A village is a clustered human settlement or community, larger than a hamlet with the population ranging from a few hundred to a few thousand , Though often located in rural areas, the term urban village is also applied to certain urban neighbourhoods, such as the West Village in Manhattan, New...
and parish
Parish
A parish is a territorial unit historically under the pastoral care and clerical jurisdiction of one parish priest, who might be assisted in his pastoral duties by a curate or curates - also priests but not the parish priest - from a more or less central parish church with its associated organization...
on the southern flank of the Preseli Hills
Preseli Hills
The Preseli Hills or Preseli Mountains are a range of hills in north Pembrokeshire, West Wales...
in Pembrokeshire
Pembrokeshire
Pembrokeshire is a county in the south west of Wales. It borders Carmarthenshire to the east and Ceredigion to the north east. The county town is Haverfordwest where Pembrokeshire County Council is headquartered....
, Wales
Wales
Wales is a country that is part of the United Kingdom and the island of Great Britain, bordered by England to its east and the Atlantic Ocean and Irish Sea to its west. It has a population of three million, and a total area of 20,779 km²...
. It is part of the community
Community (Wales)
A community is a division of land in Wales that forms the lowest-tier of local government in Wales. Welsh communities are analogous to civil parishes in England....
of Mynachlog-ddu
Mynachlog-ddu
Mynachlog-ddu is a village, and community in the Preseli Hills, Pembrokeshire, Wales. The community also includes the parish of Llangolman.There are two places of worship in the village: the Anglican church of St...
.
History
Llangolman lies in a historic landscape near the upper part of the valley of the Eastern Cleddau and its tributaries. The village placename derives from the church dedicated to St. Golman, or in Irish, St Colman. Colman is attributed to Colman of Dromore who was a saint from 5 and 6th centuries.Anglican Church
Llangolman church stands on high ground just to the south of the main village. The current building is Victorian or early Victorian with little to show of the original medieval building that once stood on the site. Of historical interest is the recording in the 19th century of a stone gate post about 100 to 200 yards from the churchyard. This stone, known as the Maen-ar-Golman (The stone upon Golman) is about 7 feet tall with a number of cross markings carved on the to stone. The stone however appears to have no inscriptions. The local belief is that Golman is buried nearbyLocal Chapels
There are two local chapels in the area, Llandeilo and Rhydwilym. Rhydwilym is the oldest active Welsh Baptist Chapel in the world and was founded in 1668. Funds to build the first chapel were provided by the Gentleman Farmer John Evans of Llwyndwr in 1701. There was most certainly a chapel on the site in 1763 because a plaque on the front wall indicates that the 1763 chapel was rebuilt in 1841, and further enlarged in 1875.The current Llandeilo chapel was built in 1882 though earlier Chapel structures are recorded in the immediate vicinity. The name LLandeilo comes from the local church dedicated to the 5th century saint, St. Telio.
Historical Buildings
Two gentry houses from the 18th century include Plas-y-Meibion and Llangolman Farm. There is also the house called Temple Druid (c1795) which was designed by John Nash (architect)John Nash (architect)
John Nash was a British architect responsible for much of the layout of Regency London.-Biography:Born in Lambeth, London, the son of a Welsh millwright, Nash trained with the architect Sir Robert Taylor. He established his own practice in 1777, but his career was initially unsuccessful and...
, architect to King George IV, and is located roughly half way between Llangolman and Maenclochog
Maenclochog
Maenclochog is a small village in Pembrokeshire, south-west Wales. It lies at the south of the Preseli Hills, about one mile southeast of the village of Rosebush.Researchers believe to have found the remains of a 13th Century castle at Maenclochog...
.
Llangolman Farm has some architectural interest . Although most of the current house probably dates from the 18th century, the rear wing of the house has an older structure that includes barrel vaulting. There are two vaults one above the other. The lower vault covers the underlying cellar which has three rooms. The end room in the cellar and deepest includes a fresh water well. The first room, entered from an open arched doorway includes square holes in the vaulted ceiling that allowed butter to be easily dropped into the cellar for storage. Above the cellar vault is a second vaulted ceiling that currently houses the bathroom. The farm in the past was a center of production, including clay, slate, salted bacon, butter and a large mill for grinding corn.
Location and Terrain
The area surrounding the village is riddled with steep wooded valleys, presumably cut during one of the last ice ages. The village itself sits on a plateau where two valleys meet, the Eastern CleddauRiver Cleddau
The River Cleddau consists of the Eastern and Western Cleddau rivers in Pembrokeshire, west Wales. They unite to form the Daugleddau estuary, which forms the important harbour of Milford Haven....
and a tributary that originates near the small village of Llandelio. The underlining geology consists of large quantities of slate and small amounts of sandstone. Evidence of glaciation is also seen from large banks of gravel and sand situated to the east of the village which form deep drainage seeps from which discharges excellent spring water.
The springs emerge in boggy land at the base of the gravel banks where deposits of blue boulder clay, known by the natives as "indiarubber clay" can also be found. Clay pits close to the farm houses of Llangolman Farm (still visible) and Llyn are evidence that the clay was extracted on a significant scale at some time in the past.
The valley sides have largely been saved from deforestation due to their steepness and some evidence of old forest exists along the western side of the Llandelio tributary. Otters have been seen in the rivers. Of historical interest is a surviving and working hydraulic ram
Hydraulic ram
A hydraulic ram, or hydram, is a cyclic water pump powered by hydropower. It functions as a hydraulic transformer that takes in water at one "hydraulic head" and flow-rate, and outputs water at a higher hydraulic-head and lower flow-rate...
that pumps water to the local farm called Ffynnon Sampson (Which in translation means Samson's Well).
Industry
The current landscape within which the village sits is entirely rural. As such the bulk of income generated by the local economy is a combination of farming and tourism. Tourism includes both local bed and breakfast and rented cottages while the local farming industry is a combination of dairy, cattle and sheep. Of more interest and of historical importance is the slateSlate
Slate is a fine-grained, foliated, homogeneous metamorphic rock derived from an original shale-type sedimentary rock composed of clay or volcanic ash through low-grade regional metamorphism. The result is a foliated rock in which the foliation may not correspond to the original sedimentary layering...
quarrying industry. Geologically the area has a seam of Lakeland green slate running roughly east-west along the Taf Valley . This slate is of volcanic ash origin and of Ordovician
Ordovician
The Ordovician is a geologic period and system, the second of six of the Paleozoic Era, and covers the time between 488.3±1.7 to 443.7±1.5 million years ago . It follows the Cambrian Period and is followed by the Silurian Period...
date. The slate is generally of a greenish-gray or light blue colour . This slate was often used, in addition to roofing, for covering exposed walls to keep our moisture. Until the 1970s, the outer walls of Llangolman Farm were covered in hanging slates.
The slate itself was exploited at least as early as 1860 with the largest quarry being at Dandderwen (known as Whitland Abbey Slate after the name of the company which exploited it) . There is however some suggestion that the Gilfach quarry may have been worked as early as the 16th century. It is also claimed that the slate used on the roof of the Houses of Parliament, when rebuild in the 1830's, originated from the Gilfach quarry . Much of the slate industry went into decline after the 1890s and by the 1930's most were closed due to competition from cheaper sources. However the Gilfach quarry on the eastern side of the Eastern Cleddau
Cleddau
Cleddau may refer to:*River Cleddau, a river in Pembrokeshire, Wales.**Cleddau Estuary/Daugleddau, at the mouth of the River Cleddau*Cleddau Bridge, crossing over the Cleddau Estuary...
was still in operation until 1987.
There are many smaller workings dotted amongst the landscape. Many of these quarries are located in the steep sided valley that carries the western tributary from Llaneilo that joins the Eastern Cleddau. Many of these quarries are located near Llangolman Farm with one of the quarries located immediately north of the farm house itself.
Schools
There are no schools in Llangolman village. Children from Llangolman would either go to MaenclochogMaenclochog
Maenclochog is a small village in Pembrokeshire, south-west Wales. It lies at the south of the Preseli Hills, about one mile southeast of the village of Rosebush.Researchers believe to have found the remains of a 13th Century castle at Maenclochog...
about 2.5 miles away or until 1964 they would walk to the slightly closer school at Nant y Cwm (1.7 miles away). Nant y Cwm closed however in 1964 but reopened in 1979 as a Steiner School .