Penrice

The village green of Penrice

Penrice is a small village on the Gower Peninsula in South Wales . The village is 1.5 km north of Oxwich and can only be reached via narrow back roads.

history

To secure Norman rule on the Gower peninsula, Henry de Beaumont built a wall called Monty Brough at the beginning of the 12th century and handed it over to one of his followers, who took the name de Penrice . The Lords of Penrice built St Andrew's Church in the 12th century, donated to the Order of St. John in 1180 by John de Penres . After the castle was burned down by the Welsh in 1215 and 1217, Robert de Penres built a new castle on the north side of the valley in place of the old castle around 1237. In the Middle Ages, Penrice was a lively market town with four annual markets and a weekly market held twice a week on the village green.

Today the small village belongs to the Principal Area Swansea and is one of 31 Conservation Areas of the Principal Area, which are protected because of their architectural or historical importance.

Attractions

To the west of the village green are the overgrown remains of the Norman ring wall from the early 12th century. The ring wall is about 40 by 28 m,
on the northern edge of the village green is the 12th century St Andrew's Church ,
about 800 m northeast of the village are the ruins of the medieval castle Penrice Castle and a Georgian-style manor house with a surrounding landscape park ,
west of the village is a 126 hectare deciduous forest called Millwood, which was part of the landscape park surrounding Penrice Mansion in the 18th century,
There are still several old farmhouses in and around the village, including the Pitt Farm House from the mid-17th century, about 1 km south of the village,
About 1 km east of the village is the small hamlet of Nicholaston with the neo-Gothic church of St Nicholas and the Stone Age stone chest of Nicholaston .