----- Original Message -----
From: "Jeff Coleman" <Jeff.Coleman(a)ntlworld.com>
To: <wales-local-history(a)rootsweb.com>
Sent: Monday, September 12, 2011 11:56 AM
Subject: Re: [WALES-LOCAL-HISTORY] town/place name
Pentre is the Welsh word for village ( literally 'head of the
town') so
there are lots of places in wales with that name, weither on its own or in
combination. It is pronounces as two syllables with the stress on the
first.
The second sounds somewhere between 'tray' and 'tread' (without the d) so
an
English census enumerator from the Black Country could quite easily have
written it as Pentry.
http://www.genuki.org.uk/big/wal/DEN/indexpars.html#P lists the parishes
of
Denbighshire including Pentrefoelas. It may be worth looking more closely
at the coalfield areas near Wrexham. There is a place called Pentre in
Chirk
which is the only one found when searching Google maps for Pentre,Wrexham.
http://www.genuki.org.uk/cgi-bin/placemaps has a link to
www.old-maps.co.uk
and to more modern maps.
This was right on a main railway line (Llangollen Road station) and close
to the industrial villages of Cefn Mawr ( with Plas-Kynaston colliery, and
also potteries nearby) and Rhosymedre [otherwise better known for the hymn
tune of that name].
You would need to find out when this particular railway ( the Shrewsbury
to
Chester line) was opened, to find out whether it is likely that he
travelled
by train to his new home. It seems to have been open by 1848. ( from
http://www.llangollen-railway.org.uk/historyoftheline.html )
http://www.bbc.co.uk/wales/northeast/sites/wrexham/pages/kynaston.shtml is
about the big house called Plas Kynaston, presumably where the colliery
and
pottery owners lived.
http://www.plaskynastongroup.org/ also refers to the Pontcysyllte
aqueduct,
not far from Pentre. It is a UNESCO world heritage site. So it is also
possible that he travelled by canal.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pontcysyllte_Aqueduct and links.
Also search for canals in the area near where he settled.
Jeff
----- Original Message -----
From: "tam smith" <tamiwell(a)bigpond.com>
To: <WALES-LOCAL-HISTORY(a)rootsweb.com>
Sent: Monday, September 12, 2011 5:24 AM
Subject: [WALES-LOCAL-HISTORY] town/place name
> Hello everyone,
> I'm looking for a town that may be pronounced PEATRY or PENTRY. It was
> the place my GGG Grandfather came from, he was born there circa 1830. It
> was in Denbighshire and would have probably been close to the
> Staffordshire area of Stoke Upon Trent. He was a coal miner so it also
> may have been a mining town or close to a mining area. Does anyone know
> where this might be? I have no idea about Welsh pronunciation (Im
> Australian) so I was hoping someone Welsh might know what town could
> sound
> like Peatry or Pentry to the census transcriber in England. The closest
> I
> could come up with on the map to Staffordshire was Pentre near Halton and
> Penley. But I'm not sure how they were pronounced or if there are any
> other places that would better fit the name/circumstance. Thank you very
> much,
> Tamara.
>