BARRY-ISLAND, an islet, in the parish of BARRY, hundred of DINASPOWYS, county of GLAMORGAN, SOUTH WALES, 9 miles (S. W.
by S.) from Cardiff. The population is returned with the parish. This small islet, situated in a sandy bay of the Bristol
channel, is separated from the main land only by a narrow isthmus, which is dry at low water: it is about one mile and a
half in circumference, and comprises about three hundred acres of land, let as one farm, but chiefly in a wild state of
heath and warren, abounding with rabbits, and producing only a scanty herbage for a few sheep and cattle. Lead-ore and
calamine are stated to have been formerly obtained among the limestone of which the island consists. It is supposed to
have derived its name from St. Baruch, a disciple of Gisalch, who was interred here in the year 700, and, in later times,
was in the possession of the family of de Barri, one of the most distinguished members of which was Giraldus de Barn,
otherwise Cambrensis, who was born at Mauorbeer, in the county of Pembroke, where the remains of their castle may still be
seen; some of the descendants of this family afterwards settled in Ireland, and became ennobled. Leland describes it as
bearing " very good Corse, Grasse, and sum Wood ;" and says, " There ys no Dwelling in the Isle, but ther is in the midle
of it a fair litle Chapel of S. Barrok, NJ/her much Pilgrimage was usid." Since his time a house has been erected, as a
residence for the fanner, which is fitted up in summer for the reception of persons desirous of enjoying in retirement the
salutary pleasure of sea-bathing. On the western side of the island, opposite to the ruins of Barry castle, are faint
vestiges of a similar structure, and of two ancient chapels, in one of which the hermit St. Baruch was interred. Towards
the southern side, at a place called Nell's Point, there is a well, much resorted to on Holy Thursday by females, who,
having washed their eyes with the water, each drop a pin into it, the memorial of some ancient custom, or offering to the
presiding ,saint. Giraldus Cambrensia, in his description of the island, gives an account of a small cavity in a rock near
the entrance to it, from which, on applying the ear, proceeded a noise resembling that of blacksmiths at work, the blowing
of bellows, strokes of hammers, grinding of tools, and roaring of furnaces; and is at a loss to conjecture its cause, as
the same sounds were heard at low water, as at the ebb and flow of the tide, which might produce this effect by the influx
of the waters under the cavities of the rocks. Modern writers, however, have not been able to discover any cavity whence
these subterraneous noises issue, and the phenomenon, if it ever existed except in a fanciful imagination, exists no
longer.