St Andrews Major

 Riding in St Andrews Major:
 Argae House Ltd
       Argae House
       St Andrews Major
       Dinas Powys
       South Glamorgan
       CF64 4HD
 029 20515546

 Schools/Colleges in St Andrews Major:
 St Andrews Major C.I.W. Primary
       St Andrew's Road
       Dinas Powys
       Vale of Glamorgan
       CF64 4HB
 02920 513089

Andrew's, St. - From 'A Topographical Dictionary of Wales' (1849)
ANDREW'S, ST., a parish, in the union of Cardiff, hundred of Dinas-Powys, county of Glamorgan, South Wales, 5� miles (S. W.) from Cardiff; containing 497 inhabitants. This parish is situated on a line of road running along the coast, and is bounded on the north by Michaelstone-le-Pit, on the south by Sully, on the east by Llandough and Cogan, and on the west by Cadoxton and Wenvoe. It comprises by admeasurement 3149 acres, of which 800 are arable, 2000 meadow and pasture, 300 wood, and the rest common. The soil, which varies considerably, is in some places a tenacious blue clay, and in others a fine reddish-brown loam producing all kinds of grain, potatoes, &c., of good quality; beans are grown upon the clayey portion, and some parts that are wet and marshy are appropriated to the pasturage of young cattle and the growth of coarse hay, a great part of the pasture being open moorland, which is mown yearly and afterwards used for grazing. The substratum consists of magnesian and lias limestone, the latter of which is the basis of the clayey soil. The ground is rather elevated and hilly towards the inland, or northern, side of the parish, and level towards the Bristol Channel, or southern side. The wood is chiefly oak and ash coppice. The lands are subject to partial inundation from the overflowing of a small stream, called DinasPowys brook; it runs through the south-eastern part of the parish towards the south, and empties itself into the Channel. The village, which is large, is called Dinas-Powys, from an ancient fortress that existed here and also gave name to the hundred.

The living is a rectory, rated in the king's books at �14. 13. 1�., and in the patronage of the Crown: the tithes have been commuted for a rent-charge of �355, and there is a glebe of seventy-five acres, valued at �96 per annum, with a commodious rectoryhouse, built by the Rev. Windsor Richards. The church, which is antique in appearance, contains about 120 sittings. At the east end of the north aisle, parallel with the chancel, was the burial-place of a respectable family named Howel, long since extinct, resident at Bouville, and owners of a great part of the parish; it was formerly kept in repair by the Lee family, the present proprietors of part of the Bouville estate, but the aisle has been pulled down for some years, and thrown open to the churchyard. In the floor of this aisle is a stone which bore the following inscription:�"Here lyeth the body of John Gibbon James, buried the 14 of August, 1601. And Margaret Mathew, his wife, buried the 8 of January, 1631. He aged ninety-nine, she aged one hundred and twenty-four." The inscription is now nearly obliterated, from the influence of the weather since the aisle was removed. There is a place of worship for Calvinistic Methodists, with a Sunday school held in it. Divers benefactions of small amount have been made for the use of the poor, consisting of bequests of �2 by William David, and �10 by Thomas Stevens, in 1699; of �5 by Edward Howels, in 1709; of �5 by William Morgan, in 1718; and of �5 by Thomas Thomas, in 1729. These sums were vested in trust with the overseers, but no record exists of their appropriation to charitable purposes, except, probably, in the purchase of a poor-house in the churchyard, which is now nearly a ruin. On part of the site of the ancient mansion of Bouville, situated at the north-western extremity of the parish, a farmhouse has been erected by R. F. Jenner, Esq., one of whose ancestors purchased the mansion, together with a portion of the estate: there are still some slight vestiges of the ancient building.

The fortress of Dinas-Powys was situated on the north-eastern side of the parish. It is stated to have been built by Iestyn ab Gwrgan, who succeeded to the kingdom of Glamorgan in 1043, and became possessed of the district called Tr�v Esyllt by marriage with Denis, the daughter of Bleddyn ab Cynvyn, Prince of Powys. He is said to have called the castle, after his wife, Denis-Powys; but this etymology is probably incorrect, as the village is invariably called Dinas-Powys, meaning the city of Powys; and the castle, Dinas-Powys Castle, in all likelihood in honour of Iestyn's father-in-law, the Prince of Powys. It does not appear from the remains to have been built as a place of permanent residence, but as an asylum for the inhabitants and their cattle during the feuds of ancient times. The ruins merely consist of four walls, between thirty and forty feet high, and six feet thick, rudely built of unhewn stone, with battlements about five feet high, and a platform three feet wide within, inclosing an oblong area of seventy yards by thirty-five. There are two entrances; one, apparently the principal, at the east end, now, from the falling-in of the wall, presenting only a wide breach; and the other on the north side, about nine feet high, and six feet wide, arched over with rough unhewn stones. In the two walls at the end, and the wall on the north side, are ranges of square holes, nine inches in diameter, plastered with mortar, distant from each other five or six feet horizontally, and about three feet perpendicularly, which were probably intended for the admission of air. Within the area a mound of earth and stones, of very easy ascent, rises to the top of the wall on the south side; and near the northern extremity are the foundations of some walls, rather difficult to be traced, which appear to have formed two separate apartments. On the outside of the great walls, at the north-western corner, is a small heap of ruins, probably those of an arx, or tower, appendant to the castle, with which it appears to have communicated by means of a narrow door; and within the last century, there was a subterraneous passage, commencing in the side of the rocky hill forming the site of the castle, and proceeding in a direction towards this tower, but which has been filled up. The ruins of Dinas-Powys are the property of the Lee family, who have caused some parts of the walls to be repaired, to prevent their further decay.