This is how we know the coast at Pensarn used to be a few miles further north. Here’s a grave in St Michael’s graveyard, photographed by Sion Jones. It’s for a man”who had his dwelling three miles to the north”
Cofeb i’r gŵr a dywedir, oedd yn byw tair milltir i’r gogledd
sydd yng nghanol y môr!
So this man did not have a name or I’m I missing something not being from the area
So this man had no name or I’m I missing the point not being from the area
theres something pleasant about this headstone I think I would be quite happy if mine was as good I dont doubt it could be traced but might take a lot of research
It’s an interesting & oft puzzled over monument that Sion has photographed above, with an earlier but badly worn version just visible to the right of it. By way of some background information, the well known local historian J. R. Ellis JP, in the Introduction to his 1948 book A History of Abergele and District, has the following to say about it (on page 10):
In making mention of ‘great inundations of rhe sea’ he says ‘The most familiar is the version given on the stone to be found in the wall at St. Michael’s Parish churchyard with the inscription :-
Yma mae’n gorwedd ym mynwent Mihangel, Wr oedd a’i annedd dair milltir i’r gogledd.
Here lieth in St. Michael’s Churchyard, a man who lived three miles to the north.
He goes on to explain that ‘It is difficult to know what to make of the old inscription; the style of lettering and the inscription do not point to a very remote antiquity, but it may be a copy of an older inscription. Pennant, in his ‘Journeyings in North Wales’ published in 1778, refers to the stone and its inscription in the churchyard wall.
Further mention of the stone is made by J R Ellis on page 32 of his book when he tells us that ‘it is situate in the corner of the north wall. It is stated that it is not now in its original position, when it formed the headstone of a grave in another portion of the churchyard. It is not of very ancient date, but may have been a copy of a still older one’.
Even in the 1860 book ‘Records of Denbigh’ the Rev. John Williams (Glanmor) states that ‘there was then a tradition among old people of an older one’. These references relate to the old, badly worn stone for, as we are further informed ‘in 1897, Mrs Taylor, wife of the late Archdeacon Taylor D.D. Liverpool, defrayed the cost of the granite slab placed adjoining it, inscribed in Welsh & English’.
Ellis Wynne Williams, in his book Abergele – The Story of a Parish, cites F.J. North’s comments from ‘Sunken Cities’ to the effect that ‘The original stone had no date but its characters indicate that it was executed in the early part of the 17th Century. According to local tradition it is a copy of a still older memorial, but it is of no value as evidence because it is not in its original position. It has been built into a wall and neither the name of the man nor the place where he lived is given’.
So there, dear readers, is rhe background to this most interesting of monuments in St. Michael’s Parish churchyard.