Here are just a few snippets pulled together from elsewhere on the internet – sources included below each section. If you know more about the history of our area, we would love to know about it – please get in contact with the Clerk on clerk@eglwyscummin.co.uk

Ciffig

Ciffig Church is a grade II listed 12th Century church, which has no known dedication. Within the church there still exists a 13th-century font and a preaching window by the pulpit. The church was mentioned in the Book of Llandaff, written in the 12th century but based on older documents, suggesting that there may have been a church here for well over 1000 years. Despite the name, there is no indication that it was ever dedicated to St Cyffig.

The oldest part of the current building is the 13th-century nave, which was rebuilt in the 15th century. At that time the chancel was added as well as a north aisle. The architecture is interesting, as it would appear that the arcade between the nave and new north aisle was made by simply piercing the existing nave wall, resulting in rather rough openings.

The font is 13th century but has been recut at a later date, and there is a holy water stoup by the tower arch, and a squint, or hagioscope, by the pulpit. The east window glass contains a memorial to Captain Howells of the Welch Regiment, who died in 1915 from wounds received in the Gallipoli landings. In the churchyard, by the east end of the church, is a memorial to 5 children of the Pale family who all died under the age of 7.

https://www.britainexpress.com/attractions.htm?attraction=651

Marros – St Laurence’s Church

St Lawrence’s Church was a chapel of ease during the medieval period, belonging to St Martin’s Church, Laugharne (NPRN 102141), as a perpetual curacy annexed to Laugharne Vicarage. By 1563 St Lawrence’s Church, Marros (NPRN 413036) was also a chapel of ease to Laugharne parish, but became a parish church in 1769. In 1998 the church was a parish church, belonging to the Rural Deanery of St Clears. According to local tradition, the church was originally intended to be located in the field where the Giants Graves mound (NPRN 24423) is located, some 1.5km south-west. Howver, the stones placed there were mysteriously removed to the current church site. In 1898 excavations close to the churchyard walls reportedly uncovered thirty Bronze Age cremation urns. The base and shaft of a cross (NPRN 304162) survive within the churchyard. In 1880 it was noted that animals’ heads (particularly wolves’) were traditionally attcahed to the cross (as with other churchyard crosses), and that a few years previously a farmer from Marros had hung foxes heads on it. Another interesting feature is the churchyard boundary wall, noted in 1912, is the number of inscribed initials, each denoting the length of wall contributed by particular parishioners from 1786 to 1899.

The church is a Grade II listed building, constructed of limestone rubble. It consists of four-bayed nave and chancel, north transept (vestry), south porch and three-storeyed west tower. The cylindrical font’s stem and base date to the thirteenth century, although its square bowl is of uncertain date. The nave and chancel are thought to date to the thirteenth-fourteenth century, and it is possible that the transept is of the same date. It is possible that the transept was originally an east to west running aisle. The porch may be fourteenth-fifteenth century. It has a plain, two-centred barrel-vault and two-centred door surround of Old Red Sandstone. The tower is thought to mainly date to the fifteenth century, with a window possibly dating to the sixteenth century, which is when the stair turret and parapet are to possibly have been added. The tower, which dwarfs the rest of the church, is noticably out of alignment with the nave. It is thought that the tower may have had a second building phase, possibly in the mid-sixteenth century, to which the west window, stair turret and crenellated parapet may belong.There is an early nineteenth century fireplace in the tower’s first floor, where a school was held until 1840. The church was restored in 1844 (as commemorated on a plaque), when the tower’s spiral staircase was blocked and a doorway was inserted in the west wall. The nave was reportedly substantially rebuilt, and the re-crenellation and heightening of the tower’s parapet is thought to also date to this time. The church was again restored in 1895-1898, to the designs of Prothero and Phillott, Cheltenham, Cambridge and Newport. A trapdoor was inserted through the tower’s vault. a wall was inserted between the north transept and the nave and chancel. The church was re-fenestrated, re-floored, re-seated and re-plastered. The stalls, pews and disused iron stove all date to this time, as does the masonry benching in the porch.

Sources include:
Cambria Archaeology, 2000, Carmarthenshire Churches, gazetteer, 48
Curtis, M, The Antiquities of Laugharne And Pendine And Their Neighbourhoods: Carmarthenshire, Amroth, Saundersfoot, Cilgetty, Pembrokeshire, South Wales (1880)

https://coflein.gov.uk/en/site/413036/

The Wales Coastal Path runs through Marros area, and in fact through a World War II minefield! (since made safe). See the history points website for more information. There is also a shipwreck just off the coast: in December 1886 the schooner Rover was sailing with coal from Saundersfoot to its home port of Wexford when a gale blew it ashore.

According to John Marius Wilson’s Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales there was a population of 130 people in 30 houses in Marros in 1870 or thereabouts. The property was ‘all one estate’ so probably individually rented from one landowner, and the land was classed as poor. Sedimentary ironstone was prevalent.

Red Roses

The building that is now the Village Hall in Red Roses was the Calvinistic Methodist Chapel. It was built around 1872 originally in the simple round-headed style with a gable entrance and a slate roof. It was replaced with the aid of funding to make a village Hall on the site, and subsequently leased by Eglwyscummin Community Council to Eglwyscummin Community Association, who now manage it.

According to John Marius Wilson’s Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales there was a population of 260 and 51 houses in Eglwys Gymyn in 1870 or thereabouts.There was not one landowner – ownership was split amongst several people. He also records that two subterranean streams run beneath the area to the sea, and that there are the ruins of two castles.