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Presteign

1911 Encyclopedia Britannica

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a market town, urban district, and assize and county town of Radnorshire, Wales, situated on the Lug amidst beautiful scenery. Pop. (1901), 1245. Presteign is the terminus of a branch of the Great Western railway running north from Titley Junction in Herefordshire. The old-fashioned town contains the fine parish church of St Andrew, dating chiefly from the 15th century, and an interesting old inn, the "Radnorshire Arms," once the residence of the Bradshaw family in the 17th century. To the west rises the Wardon, a wooded hill laid out as a public park. Presteign is the most easterly spot on the Welsh border, a circumstance that is noted in the Cymric expression to mark the extreme breadth of the Principality - o Tyddewi i Llanandras (" from St Davids to Presteign").

Although the Welsh name of Llanandras is said to denote a foundation by St Andras ap Rhun ap Brychan in the 5th century, the place seems to have been an obscure hamlet in the lordship of Moelynaidd until the 14th century, when Bishop David Martyn of St Davids (1290-1328) conferred valuable market privileges upon this his native place, which on doubtful authority is said to derive its English name from this priest. In 1542 Presteign was named as the meeting-place of the county sessions for Radnorshire in conjunction with New Radnor, and it has ever since ranked as the county town. Although an ancient borough by prescription, Presteign was not included in the Radnor parliamentary district until the 19th century, and of this privilege it was deprived by the Redistribution Act of 1885.