Whitchurch (, "Town of the

Cross A cross is a religious symbol consisting of two Intersection (set theory), intersecting Line (geometry), lines, usually perpendicular to each other. The lines usually run vertically and horizontally. A cross of oblique lines, in the shape of t ...

") is a small village and

parish A parish is a territorial entity in many Christianity, Christian denominations, constituting a division within a diocese. A parish is under the pastoral care and clerical jurisdiction of a priest#Christianity, priest, often termed a parish pries ...

(', "Parish of the Cross") in north-western

Pembrokeshire Pembrokeshire ( ; ) is a Principal areas of Wales, county in the South West Wales, south-west of Wales. It is bordered by Carmarthenshire to the east, Ceredigion to the northeast, and otherwise by the sea. Haverfordwest is the largest town and ...

West Wales West Wales () is a region of Wales. It has various definitions, either covering Pembrokeshire, Ceredigion and Carmarthenshire, which historically comprised the Welsh principality of ''Deheubarth'', and an alternative definition is to include Swa ...

Description

The settlement of Whitchurch is from the coast and east of

St David's St Davids or St David's (, , "Saint David, David's Welsh toponymy, house”) is a St David's Cathedral, cathedral City status in the United Kingdom, city in Pembrokeshire, Wales. It lies on the River Alun, Pembrokeshire, River Alun and is ...

, and includes the parish church (also dedicated to

Saint David David (; ; ) was a Welsh Christian prelate who served as Bishop of Mynyw during the 6th century. He is the patron saint of Wales. David was a native of Wales, and tradition has preserved a relatively large amount of detail about his life. ...

) and a few houses. The largest settlement in the

, which covers , is

Solva Solva () is a village, community (Wales), community and wards and electoral divisions of the United Kingdom, electoral ward in Pembrokeshire, Wales. The village comprises principally Lower Solva and Upper Solva. The community also includes Mid ...

, whose own church is dedicated to St Aidan. The parishes of Whitchurch and St Elvis make up the

community A community is a social unit (a group of people) with a shared socially-significant characteristic, such as place, set of norms, culture, religion, values, customs, or identity. Communities may share a sense of place situated in a given g ...

of Solva.

History

By the

churchyard In Christian countries, a churchyard is a patch of land adjoining or surrounding a church (building), church, which is usually owned by the relevant church or local parish itself. In the Scots language and in both Scottish English and Ulster S ...

gate is a

standing stone A menhir (; from Brittonic languages: ''maen'' or ''men'', "stone" and ''hir'' or ''hîr'', "long"), standing stone, orthostat, or lith is a large upright rock (geology), stone, emplaced in the ground by humans, typically dating from the Eur ...

called ', believed to be the lower part of a large

Celtic cross upright 0.75 , A Celtic cross symbol The Celtic cross is a form of ringed cross, a Christian cross featuring a nimbus or ring, that emerged in the British Isles and Western Europe in the Early Middle Ages. It became widespread through its u ...

. Whitchurch was a chapelry in the parish of St David's before becoming a parish in its own right. It is marked on a 1578 parish map held by the British Library. A later, but pre-1850 parish map shows the extensive parish including several smaller settlements, including the village of Solva, in which there were numerous chapels. Much of the land was still unenclosed in the 19th century. Whitchurch was in the ancient

hundred 100 or one hundred (Roman numerals, Roman numeral: C) is the natural number following 99 (number), 99 and preceding 101 (number), 101. In mathematics 100 is the square of 10 (number), 10 (in scientific notation it is written as 102). The standar ...

Dewisland 250px, The cantref of Pebidiog in ancient Dyfed The Hundred of Dewisland (often written "Dewsland") was a hundred in northwest Pembrokeshire, Wales. Formerly the pre-Norman cantref of Pebidiog, it included the city and the peninsula of St Davids ...

and in the 1830s had a population of 1,028. The population varied from 599 in 1801 to a maximum of 1,252 in 1851, then had fallen to 800 by 1961. Whitchurch and Solva share a War Memorial, on which the names of 50 parishioners are listed as having lost their lives in two world wars.

RAF St Davids Royal Air Force St Davids, or more simply RAF St Davids, is a former Royal Air Force station, near the city of St Davids, Pembrokeshire, Wales, in the Community (Wales), community of Solva. It opened in the late summer of 1943, for RAF Coastal ...

was established in 1943, and operated until the 1990s. There is an unusually large number of listed buildings for such a rural area, many with mediaeval origins, including the Grade II listed parish church, mills, bridges and farm buildings.

Notable people

The farm of Caerforiog, Whitchurch, is claimed as the birthplace of Adam Houghton (or Hoton), a 14th-century

Lord Chancellor of England The Lord Chancellor, formally titled Lord High Chancellor of Great Britain, is a senior minister of the Crown within the Government of the United Kingdom. The lord chancellor is the minister of justice for England and Wales and the highest-r ...

and

Bishop of St Davids The Bishop of St Davids is the ordinary of the Church in Wales Diocese of St Davids. The succession of bishops stretches back to Saint David who in the 6th century established his seat in what is today the city of St Davids in ...

. In 1856, a small building survived at Caerforiog with an

ogee An ogee ( ) is an object, element, or curve—often seen in architecture and building trades—that has a serpentine- or extended S-shape (Sigmoid curve, sigmoid). Ogees consist of a "double curve", the combination of two semicircle, semicircula ...

-headed doorway, possibly dating from the 14th century. Caleb Rees (1883–1970), was born at "Esgairordd", in Whitchurch, Pembrokeshire; he was a Welsh school inspector for over forty years and a writer on educational and ecclesiastical topics.

References

{{authority control Villages in Pembrokeshire