Bryncroes

Bryncroes (Bryn-Croes) - From 'A Topographical Dictionary of Wales' (1849)
BRYNCROES (BRYN-CROES), a parish, in the union of Pwllheli, partly in the hundred of Gaflogion, but principally in that of Commitmaen, Lleyn division of the county of Carnarvon, North Wales, 11 miles (W. by S.) from Pwllheli; containing 948 inhabitants. The village is pleasantly situated on the river Sochan: the parish, which is entirely agricultural, contains about 3000 acres of land, the whole of it inclosed. The living is a perpetual curacy, endowed with a rent-charge of £12 private benefaction, with £600 royal bounty, and £1000 parliamentary grant; net income, £107; patron and impropriator, C. G. Wynne, Esq., whose tithes have been commuted for a rent-charge of £181. 10. 6. The church is a small edifice in good repair, and is appropriately fitted up for the accommodation of the parishioners. There are places of worship for Calvinistic Methodists, Independents, and Wesleyans, with a Sunday school held in each of them. In 1784, Robert Evans bequeathed £80 for teaching a Welsh school for this parish and those of Aberdaron, Llanvaelrhŷs, and Rhiw, which being subsequently augmented by subscriptions in each parish, a small house, premises, and above six acres of land, were purchased in the parish of Llaniestyn, now yielding about £9 per annum. Of this rent, half is now given to a schoolmaster at Aberdaron, for instructing children of that parish and Llanvaelrhŷs, and half to a schoolmaster at Bryncroes, for this parish and Rhiw; the former plan of holding a school in each of the four parishes for a year, in rotation, having been discontinued. The master here also receives £3. 13. 6. per annum, being half the rent of a tenement and fourteen acres of land devised by Griffith Hughes, in 1818, for purposes of education in the parishes of Bryncroes and Llangwnadl. In consideration of these two payments, he teaches all the poor children of Bryncroes and Rhiw who apply for admission, his only other advantages being a house and garden, and about £2 a year arising from a quarterage of 2s. paid by a few of the scholars. One or two small bequests are appropriated to the relief of the poor; and the rent of a piece of land, amounting to 15s. a year, is applied to the repairs of the church. An ancient chapel, called Tŷ-Vair, or "St. Mary's Chapel," formerly stood near the church; in the vicinity of which, also, are Fynnon-Vair, "St. Mary's Well," and Cae-Vair, "St. Mary's Field." A kist-vaen, or stone coffin, in which was an urn containing burnt bones and ashes, was discovered some years since, on the grounds of Tŷ-Mawr, in the parish; and near a house called Monachtŷ was formerly a cromlech.