Llanboidy

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Llanboidy is a village and community in Carmarthenshire, West Wales. It includes the village of Llanglydwen and lies near the Pembrokeshire border, close to the Landsker Line. The area is on the Welsh-speaking side. The community had a population of 988 in 2001, rising to 1,061 in 2011, and its electoral ward of the same name had 2,087 people in 2011. It is bordered by several Carmarthenshire communities and Crymych in Pembrokeshire.

Llanboidy’s history goes back to the Iron Age, with a timber fort site near the village centre. The name may mean “church of the cowshed” and is linked to St. Brynach, a 5th-century Irish saint who founded churches in West Wales, including Llanboidy’s church. In the Middle Ages, Llanboidy was an important drovers’ road route and once had four taverns.

Today the village has a sports and social club, a football team, a post office, and a recently rebuilt school. In the church graveyard sits a statue called “the Grief” by Sir William Goscombe John, a funerary monument to Walter Rice Howell Powell, a Victorian philanthropist who funded money and jobs for the village. Powell’s seat was Maesgwynne, north of the village, with his legacy seen in the Market Hall and other buildings in the area.