Pennsylvania in Pembrokeshire

Location and Population

Due north of St Davids, between Treleddyd Fawr and the coast, in a sheltered hollow, lie the ruins of Maes y Mynydd hamlet on private land at OS Ref.SM746285. This place name was first recorded in 1829 but earlier it was known as Pennsylvania, as shown on the 1819 OS map produced by Col. William Mudge. (This name also appears on Emanuel Bowen’s 1729 map of South Wales). The American province of Pennsylvania was founded by English Quaker William Penn in the reign of King Charles II.

Fig.3 is a (glass-plate) photograph from the late 19th century, whilst Fig.4 is a view from 2016 looking south-east.

The 1840 Tithe Map lists five plots owned by John Mortimer and Dorothy Roberts, with the latter living in the hamlet. Henry David was a tenant farmer there.
The earliest census, from 1841, lists 19 adults and 10 children living in 9 tied cottages. (In 1851 there were 16 adults and 8 children in 7 dwellings). A communal well or spring supplied the community.
In June 1919 six plots at Maes y Mynydd, totalling 11.6 acres, were auctioned in Carmarthen on behalf of the Trevaccoon Estate. No buildings were mentioned, implying that the hamlet was abandoned and ruinous.
In 2003 the landowner was Mrs Iris James of Llaethyr Farm, St Davids.

Glyn Griffiths and “his book”

Since 1936 Glyn had lived in his parents’ home, a 16th century cottage in Treleddyd Fawr, a mile or so south-east of Maes y Mynydd. During the Second World War he was soldiering in France, Germany and Holland, before returning to his work as a technical officer at RNAD Trecwn. Welsh was his mother tongue and over thirty years he developed a deep interest in local history. He regularly guided groups of visitors, including American Quakers, around the ruins of Maes y Mynydd.
In 1991 serendipity led Glyn to stumble upon a discarded, badly damaged, 19th century book, entitled “Travellers in Wales”. It included tales by well known travellers such as Jones and Freeman. However, Glyn focussed on the earliest account, by Welsh-speaking Henry Milton, who trekked to the St Davids area in June 1657. Glyn managed to transcribe the 17th century language into modern English and to match-up the early place names with their modern counterparts. (See Fig. 5)
Uniquely, for that time, Milton concentrated on the lives of ordinary working people. During his travels he would offer his labour in return for sleeping accommodation, and so gained insights into the working lives of poor (illiterate) people. To survive in Maes y Mynydd, men, women and children worked long hours on local farms for meagre wages from demanding farmers. Subsistence farming around their cottages, together with fishing, kept the “wolf from the door”. Milton met four men in the hamlet who had recently joined the Society of Friends (Quakers) in St Davids. One said that more of his neighbours would join soon.

Glyn Griffiths apparently passed “his book” to a restorer. Where is it now?
In March 2013 Glyn died and his friend and neighbour, artist Jackie Morris wrote a moving celebration of his life for the Western Mail.

(With thanks to Jackie Morris and Pembrokeshire Archives)