The Park - A Rare Gem in Merrion - Part 2

A Rare Survival of a Seventeenth Century Cottage in St. Twynnells, Pembrokeshire

A Brief History of The Park

Also see:

• The Park - A Rare Gem at Merrion - Part 1

The earliest map of The Park comes from a Stackpole Estate map book of  1786. The holding has remained the same since this date, with access to the south. In 1786 the long, straight road that now runs from Samson Cross to Brownslade did not exist and the farms and cottages of this part the Castlemartin peninsula were connected by an intricate network of lanes and paths, many of which no longer exist. One such land followed the parish boundary between St Twynnells and Warren parishes, forming the western edge of The Park.

 We get information about the land abutting The Park from this early map too. To the west the land was part of the tenement known as Merrion, a farm that was to disappear by the mid nineteenth century. To the north and south were the lands of Mr Freeman, probably of Crickmail. At this date, Crickmail was not part of the Stackpole Estate. To the north was the holding called Venn.

The schedule that accompanies the 1782 map shows that the holding was just over 8 acres and had a rental value of £5 per year.

A deed of 1789 in the Cawdor  collection (Cawdor Handlist II Box 2/211), until recently in the care of Carmarthenshire County Archives, reveals that:

Messuage and Lands late part of Venn, now called Park, now in the tenure of Abraham Evans for £5/5/0

This document is important in telling us that The Park was part of a large holding known as Venn. The Google Earth image below shows the extent of Venn and The Park at this time.

From the deed above it would seem that the tenement of Venn was divided up in about 1780, with about one quarter of Venn being given to another tenant. This portion became known as Park or The Park.

Prior to this division of Venn, we know that in 1725 (Pemb Archives: D/Angle/2) the property was part of:

Castlemartin Lordship, St Twynnells parish. One messuage and tenement by the name of Ven in the possession of John Evans and Widow Poyer under the annual rent of £7/2/6. Owned by John Campbell.

So it would seem that the Evans family lived at The Park, taking it as a holding in its own c1780. By 1803 we read in a rough list of arrears in Cawdor Campbell Box 271, a rental for 1803 that:

George Evans arrears of £18/16/0, since 1897(?). Very Poor, no hope. [Ticked as no longer being a tenant.]

 In the same rental John Dawkins is the tenant of Park, paying the same rental as his predecessor - £5/-/-. He was also the tenant of Venn.

By 1810 the rent had increased to £5/5/- and John Duberlin was tenant and the family remained  so until at least 1838, the time of the Tithe Survey of St. Twynnells parish, when the tenancy was held by Mary Duberlin, probably John's wife.

The first census when individuals households were recorded, in 1841, throws more light upon the number of people who lived at The Park at one time. In the summer of 1841 the head of the household at the Park was William Thomas, 40, an agricultural labourer who had hailed from Lampeter Velfrey. To keep him company there was his wife, Mary,  and four children, with a fifth child who was probably visiting on the day the enumerator called.

William remained a tenant until after 1881. By that year he was working as a garden labourer at the age of 81. He lived with his daughter and her young family. She had married, in 1877,  Peirce Phillips, was also a garden labourer and it was Peirce who took over the tenancy when his father-in-law died in 1885. Peirce was not a local man - he was born in Warren!  William was buried, in sight of his home, at St. Twynnells church in 1885.

Peirce and his family were still living at the Park in 1911, he being a horticultural labourer and his son an auxiliary postman. It may be members of the Phillips family who appear in the glorious photograph below.

I stop there as the trail runs cold through lack of research. It would seem, however, that the owners in 2015 have links to The Park back at least to the 1950s.


In the next post I will look more closely at The Park today.