Morvil
Morvil
|
|
|---|---|
 Looking north to Mynydd Morvil showing the remoteness of the parish |
|
 Morvil
|
|
| Morvil shown within Pembrokeshire | |
| OS grid reference | SN0330 |
| Principal area | |
| Country | Wales |
| Sovereign state | United Kingdom |
| Police | Dyfed-Powys |
| Fire | Mid and West Wales |
| Ambulance | Welsh |
| EU Parliament | Wales |
Morvil or Morfil is a remote upland parish on the southern slopes of the Preseli Mountains in north Pembrokeshire, Wales. Fishguard is 6 miles (10 km) to the northwest. The area was occupied in neolithic and Norman times, and in the past two centuries has been sparsely populated with no significant settlements developing. The parish church is dedicated to St John the Baptist.
Morvil is in the community of Puncheston.
The area of the parish is 2,551 acres (1,032 ha) and includes the settlement at Greenway crossroads. In the north of the parish is Mynydd Morvil at 300 metres (980 ft), to the south is Mynydd Castlebythe at 347 metres (1,138 ft) and in the east is Banc Du at 334 metres (1,096 ft), making the parish, with an average elevation of some 250 metres (820 ft), nearly surrounded by mountains.
Afon Anghof, a feeder river for the Western Cleddau, rises in the northeast and flows westwards through the parish. The B4313 road runs through the parish and the B4329 cuts across the southeast corner; all other roads are unclassified. Most of the parish lies within the Pembrokeshire Coast National Park.
In the northeast of the parish is Banc Du on which is a neolithic enclosure (the first confirmed in Wales and mid-west Britain) which would have been occupied in the fourth and third millennia BC and is contemporary with megalithic tombs such as the long barrow at Pentre Ifan.
A degraded earthwork on Mynydd Morvil is marked on a 19th century map as Castell and as Earthwork on modern maps.Richard Fenton recounted a local tradition that a battle or skirmish was fought there between the Normans under Martin de Turribus (founder of Newport Castle) and the Welsh, a few days after his landing at Fishguard. The Welsh were repulsed.
Samuel Lewis, in his Topographical Dictionary of 1833 states:
This place is distinguished in the historical annals of the principality for the gallant resistance opposed by the Welsh to the encroachments of a party of Norman invaders, who in the latter part of the eleventh century, under the sanction of the reigning monarch, landed on the coast of Pembroke, with a view to establish themselves in such territories as they could obtain by conquest in this part of the principality.
...
Wikipedia