Former Cardigan workhouse, St Dogmaels
Nant Y Berllan leads from the coast road and path to the former Cardigan workhouse, where paupers lived and had to work for their upkeep. The old workhouse, one of the most complete in Wales, is now visitor accommodation called Albro Castle (no access to non-guests).
Individual parishes distributed poor relief before the law changed in 1834. Parishes then grouped together in “unions”. The Cardigan Union consisted mainly of parishes in Pembrokeshire.
In 1837 and 1838 the Cardigan Union asked builders to tender for a new workhouse on part of Tŷ’n Coed Farm, St Dogmaels, using stone quarried nearby. The union stipulated fluency in Welsh when it invited married couples to apply to be the workhouse master and matron in 1839.
The new workhouse’s rules stipulated the bread must be made from barley meal. The daily potato ration could be increased “when potatoes are cheap”, but when they cost more than 14d per bushel, rice could be substituted at certain mealtimes. Local suppliers included the Ferry Inn, which provided ale and porter in the late 19th century, and St Dogmaels water mill, which provided flour and meal.
The main two-storey building has a H-shape plan. Vagrants could also spend a night at the workhouse. All had to work. In February 1845 four vagrants were sent to the local house of correction for not doing their allotted work in lieu of their night’s lodging at the workhouse. Eight months later, four inmates – boys aged 12 to 16 – went to the house of correction for one to three months for refusing to work and destroying workhouse property.
Many children moved to the workhouse after parental neglect. Elizabeth Jane Lloyd, aged two, was removed from squalid accommodation in 1906. She weighed half what she should have done and was so dirty she could hardly open her eyes. Her parents, Benjamin and Hannah, were jailed for three months with hard labour.
In June 1846 an inquest jury said workhouse officers’ conduct had been “highly reprehensible” when they failed to admit seriously ill John Griffiths. He spent six hours in a cart under a scorching sun while workhouse bureaucracy took precedence. He died from fever accelerated by his hours in the cart, according to the workhouse surgeon (who wasn’t authorised to admit people to the workhouse). Colonel Thomas Wade, the Assistant Poor Law Commissioner, was sent from London to investigate.
In 1904 the Union agreed to use the name Albro Castle (from a nearby hill’s name) instead of the stigmatising “workhouse” on the birth certificates of children born there. Albro Castle became a public assistance institution in the 1930s and was sold to a private buyer in the 1940s.
With thanks to the Royal Commission on the Ancient & Historical Monuments of Wales for the old photo
Postcode: SA43 3LH View Location Map
Copies of the old photo and other images are available from the RCAHMW. Contact: nmr.wales@rcahmw.gov.uk
 |
  |