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About Rhandirmwyn
Rhandirmwyn is a small scattered community situated in the upper Tywi valley, Carmarthenshire. It’s name is derived from the joining of two words, namely, ‘Rhandir,’ which means an area of land and ‘Mwyn,’ which means mineral. So, translated the name means exactly that, a piece of land that contains minerals – in this case Lead and Zinc. ‘Mwyn,’ also means gentle so the more poetic amongst us would rather call this the gentle land. To me it is a beautiful name for an equally beautiful place.
I hope that by visiting this website you will glean some idea of life over the years in this quiet place nestling in the Cambrian Mountains. I hope also to bring you some aspects of life today.
I
will start by basically defining the place I know as Rhandirmwyn.
(Correct spelling is Rhandir-mwyn.)
It must be difficult for anyone who is researching their family history to identify the place known by those born and bred in this valley, as Rhandirmwyn. If you go by parish boundaries then you will see that it lies in the parish of Llanfair-ar-y-bryn. In reality these parish boundaries are lines on a map and have little meaning.
Rhandirmwyn effectively extends along both sides of the Tywi (Towy) river, some two miles north of Cilycwm village and extends up the Gwenffrwd valley towards Cwrt-y-Cadno as far as Bwlchyrhiw and then east across the mountains into Ceredigion and Breconshire (Powys). These are the places where people have always identified themselves as, ’Pobol Rhandir’ - Rhandirmwn people. For those researching your family roots should look in the parishes of Llanfair-ar-y-bryn and Cilycwm in Carmarthenshire as well as Doethie Camddwr in Ceredigion (Cardiganshire) for your ancestral history. Contact this site for any guidance.
A gravestone in the Washburn Street, Cemetery, Scranton, Pennsylvania is testimony to this. It is inscribed in Welsh and relates to the death of a young man from Rhandirmwyn. It says,
’In memory of William A. Davies,
previously from Rhandirmwyn, Cilycwm parish,
Carmarthenshire died December 22nd 1873
at the age of 26 years.’