Colwinston St Michaels - near Bridgend

[olliecat]

Anyone familiar with Colwinston(e) near Bridgend?

I have quite a few ancestors buried at St Michael's and I was wondering if the graveyard is still there. I Googled but did not find much on the church itself - apparently it was revamped - that's all I found.

Thought I might visit one day.

[Sue Mackay]

This might be of interest.

[olliecat]

Thanks Sue - this booklet, any idea what it contains?
I have found some descriptions/history of the parish. I also have all the burial information for my ancestors. Just wondering if the graveyard/headstones are still there.

Would hate to trek down to Wales and find a patch of nothingness.

[Mags S]

Hi, just found it on googlemaps/streetview, it's a white building on Coed Marsarnen, Colwinston, the entrance gate seems to be on a side road off this, graves are visible on the image. Hope this helps.

[olliecat]

Thanks Mags. Brilliant idea - now I feel dumb.

Found it. Somehow I though it would be a bit bigger. Over two hundred years worth of burials and a weeny graveyard. Where did they put them all?

[Sue Mackay]

Thanks Sue - this booklet, any idea what it contains?

Glamorgan FHS have transcribed the monumental inscriptions of the parish churches over the last 20 years or so. The booklets contain a plan of the churchyard, showing the location of each grave, and of course the transcriptions from the stones, where legible.

Found it. Somehow I though it would be a bit bigger. Over two hundred years worth of burials and a weeny graveyard. Where did they put them all?

Not everyone who was buried in the churchyard had a headstone.

[Mags S]

There are gravestones at the back of the church too, if you use google street view to go up the side road you will be able to see them, some look really old so probably difficult to read.

[olliecat]

Thanks Sue - the booklet is worth getting then. I found quite a few memorials of my ancestors in Colwinston on findmypast. So I'm assuming that there are headstones for them. I must have about twenty of them and I should think (going by the number of graves I could see on google) that some of them were buried in the same graves.

Mags - that streetview was almost good enough to make out the writing on some headstones. If only the resolution was slighly higher then I could sit here and surf my ancestors graveyards.

Perhaps I should set up a online graveyard viewing venture. What whould I call it?