KIDWELLY, or CYDWELI, a parish and market-town (incorporated), having separate jurisdiction, locally in the hundred
of Kidwelly, county of CARMARTHEN, SOUTH WALES, 9 miles (S. by E.) from Car, marthen, and 225 (w.) from London,
containing 1681 inhabitants, of which number, 1435 are in the borough, and the remainder in the suburbs. This is a place
of great antiquity, and by some historians is supposed to have been the scene of the battle between Ambrosius and
Vortigern, which Bede states to have been fought in the year 458. This part of the principality, according to Camden, was
for many years occupied by the Scots under the sons of Keianus, who were finally expelled by the illustrious British
prince, Cunedda. In the reign of William Rufus, William de Londres, one of the twelve knights who attended Fitz-Hamon in
his successful attempt upon Glamorgan, and to whom the lordship of Ogmore, in that country, was afterwards assigned,
subsequently made a conquest of this district, where he is said to have erected the castle, to which the town was indebted
for the importance which it attained. The erection of this fortress, however, is attributed, with greater probability, to
one of his descendants, Maurice de Londres, who, according to Camden, after a troublesome war made himself master of
Kidwelly, and fortified the old town with walls and a castle. It afterwards became the scene of many important military
events. In the year 1114, the town and fortress were surprised and taken by Grufydd ab Rh$s, who retained possession only
for a short time; and after its re-capture, Gwenllian, wife of Grufydd, a woman of masculine intrepidity, with a view to
recover her husband's territories, placed herself at the head of a body of forces, and, attended by her two sons, attacked
Maurice de Londres at a place in the vicinity of the castle, where she was defeated, made prisoner, and put to death by
her adversary, one of her sons being also slain, and the other made captive: the place where this battle was fought is
still called Maes Gwenllian, or " Gwenllian's Field." In 1148, Cadell, one of the sons of Grufydd ab Rh9s, issuing from
Carmarthen with a powerful body of forces, ravaged and laid waste the country around this town. The castle was repaired
and strengthened, in 1190, by Rh9s ab Grufydd, but was subsequently demolished in 1233, by Grufydd, son of Llewelyn ab
Iorwerth, Prince of North Wales, who had come into this part of the country to oppose the invasions of the Earl of
Pembroke, and,learing that a plot had been concerted by the inhabitants of Kidwelly, to betray him into the power of the
English, fired the town, and marched to Carmarthen. By the marriage of the granddaughter of Maurice de Londres with Henry
Earl of Lancaster, the castle and lordship of Kidwelly became the property of this nobleman, and the exclusive
jurisdiction at present exercised in the town and lordship owe their origin to the erection of the estates of this earldom
into a county palatine in the reign of Edward III. These estates, by descent, became vested in the crown in the reign of
Henry VII., who granted the castle and lordship to the celebrated RhSts ab Thomas, to whose assistance that monarch had
been materially indebted for the success of his efforts to obtain the crown of England. On the attainder of Grufydd,
grandson of Rh9s, they again reverted to the crown, and were sold in the reign of Charles I., to the Vaughans of Golden
Grove, in this county; and after the death of John Vaughan, Esq., early in the present century, they became the property
of his devisee, Lord Cawdor, whose son and successor, Earl Cawdor, is the present proprietor. The lordship, honour, and
liberty of Kidwelly comprises the comots, or hundreds of Carnwallon, Iscennen, and Kidwelly, and contains sixteen parishes
and nineteen manors. By virtue of a grant from Charles I., the successive lords have claimed and exercised exclusive
jurisdiction within the lordship, independently of the rest of the county of Carmarthen, and also various high, extensive,
and important privileges and powers. The lord's officer holds the offices of bailiff itinerant, and bailiff of the
liberties of the castles and lordships within the said liberty; and he is also coroner, escheator, and steward of the
courts baron, which are held separately for each hundred. He has the return of all writs which run into the liberty,
excepting only non omittas writs; and, as bailiff of the liberty, summons, for the assizes and quarter sessions, the
grand and petit jurors of that part of the county which lies within its peculiar jurisdiction. The town occupies a low and
uninteresting situation on the banks of the Gwendraeth VAch, or Lesser Gwendraeth river, which divides it into two
portions, called respectively the Old and the New Town, the former of which, situated on the western side, is connected
with the latter by a handsome stone bridge. The prosperity of this once important place seems to have been completely
annihilated by destructive fires and other misfortunes, prior to the reign of Queen Elizabeth, when its inhabitants were
at the lowest ebb of poverty, as appears by a memorial drawn up on their behalf by a native of the place, and presented to
Sir George Carew, Knight Marshall. The Old Town, which was formerly surrounded with walls, having three gates, over one of
which, in Leland's time, were the remains of a town-hall, with a prison underneath it, and in which are situated the ruins
of the castle, now consists, with few exceptions, merely of hovels; and the New Town contains very few respectable
dwelling-houses, the majority being thatched cottages of very inferior appearance. The air is salubrious, and the place is
considered very healthy; but the importance which it formerly derived from its situation on a fine navigable river,
within half a mile of its influx into the great bay of Carmarthen, has ceased from the obstruction of this navigation by
the accumulation of sand, which has formed a dangerous bar across the mouth of the river. Its commerce, once flourishing,
has in consequence declined; and the opening of collieries, and the establishment of copper-works at Llanelly, to which
port this is a creek, have transferred the trade of Kidwelly to that place, and the town has almost entirely sunk into
decay. Many fruitless attempts have been made to improve the navigation of the river, and various sums expended in
unavailing efforts to remove the obstructions which impede it. Some docks, and a short canal, were constructed here about
the year 1766, by Mr. Keymer, a private individual: the former are situated about half a mile from the town, and the
latter was intended to convey coal from the mouth of the neighbouring pits to the vessels in the harbour. Some years ago,
this navigation was transferred to a company, known as the "Kidwelly Canal Company," by whom it was extended a distance of
two miles up the vale of Gwendraeth; and a branch, three miles and a half in length, was constructed to communicate with
Pembrey harbour. Here were formerly both iron and tin works, the former of which have been entirely abandoned, and the
latter are now conducted only on a very limited scale. The only exports are coal, to the opposite side of the Bristol
channel, and corn, cheese, and other agricultural produce to Bristol. Markets were formerly held by charter, on Tuesday
and Friday; but the former has been discontinued, and the latter, from the proximity of Carmarthen and Llanelly, has
become merely a market for butchers' meat and vegetables. Fairs are held on May 24th, August 1st, and October 29th. This
town received its first charter of incorporation from Henry VI.: James II., in the sixteenth year of his reign, granted to
its inhabitants their present charter, by which the government is vested in a mayor, recorder, two bailiffs, and a common
council of twelve aldermen and twelve principal burgesses, assisted by a town-clerk, chamberlain, two serjeants at mace,
and other officers. The mayor is annually chosen from the aldermen, and the bailiffs, who act as sheriffs, from the
principal burgesses. The mayor, and one of the aldermen elected for that purpose, are justices of the peace within the
borough. The corporation, by their charter, are empowered to hold courts of quarter session for the borough; are entitled
to the goods of felons and all escheats whatsoever, and to take custom of all goods and merchandise entered inwards or
cleared outwards from the port; and possess other important privileges. A court of record for pleas of debt and trespass,
to the amount of £200, arising within the borough, is held every alternate Monday, before the mayor, assisted by the town-
clerk, who claims the power of issuing process to hold to bail in actions of debt; and a court for the recovery of debts
under forty shillings is held every third week, the jurisdiction of which extends over the entire hundred. The town-hall
is a tenement, possessing no architectural features worthy of notice, which has been fitted up for this purpose, and
attached to which is a small place of confinement, serving occasionally as a lock-up house for the borough. The parish of
Kidwelly is divided into St. Mary's within, and St. Mary's without the borough, each division separately maintaining its
own poor. The living is a discharged vicarage, in the archdeaconry of Carmarthen, and diocese of St. David's, rated in the
king's books at £7. 10., and in the patronage of the Crown. The church, dedicated to St. Mary, and situated in the New
Town, is an ancient cruciform structure, of which the transepts are now in ruins, with a square embattled tower at the
western end, surmounted by a very lofty spire: over the entrance is a figure of the Virgin, and in the interior is a
monumental effigy of a priest, with an inscription, now illegible. There are places of worship for Baptists, Independents,
and Calvinistic and Wesleyan Methodists. A parochial school, conducted on the National system, is supported by
subscription, for the gratuitous instruction of poor children. At Peindlt, near this place, was anciently a small priory
of Benedictine monks, founded about the year 1130, by Roger, Bishop of Sarum, who dedicated it to St. Mary, and made it a
cell to the abbey of Sherborne in Dorsetshire: it continued to flourish till the dissolution, at which time its revenue
was £38: the present remains are very inconsiderable. Leland, speaking of the castle, in the reign of Henry VIII., states
that it was then " meately wel kept up," and " yeti fair and doble waullid; " having been repaired by Alice de Londres,
wife of one of the Dukes of Lancaster, and again in the reign of Henry VII. The present remains of this edifice occupy a
bold rocky eminence on the western side of the Gwendraeth Vach, and are in a more perfect stale of preservation than any
other of a similar character in the principality: their appearance is grand and imposing, the ruins comprising a
quadrangular area, enclosed by strong walls defended with massive circular towers at the angles, and also by bastions in
the intervals: the principal entrance, which is on the west side, is under a magnificent gateway, flanked by two round
towers, and is still in good preservation. Many of the state apartments are almost entire, and the groined ceilings of
some of them, together with other portions of the edifice, display interesting features of the early style of English
architecture. The average annual expenditure for the support of the poor of the town amounts to £388, 4., and for those of
the remainder of the parish to £152. 11.