Cwmifor is a small village in

Carmarthenshire Carmarthenshire (; or informally ') is a Principal areas of Wales, county in the South West Wales, south-west of Wales. The three largest towns are Llanelli, Carmarthen and Ammanford. Carmarthen is the county town and administrative centre. ...

. It is a part of the

Manordeilo and Salem Manordeilo and Salem () is a community located in Carmarthenshire, Wales. The population taken at the 2011 census was 1,754. The community is bordered by the communities of: Talley; Llansadwrn; Llangadog; Dyffryn Cennen; Llandeilo; Llangathe ...

community and is located between

Llandeilo Llandeilo () is a town and Community (Wales), community in Carmarthenshire, Wales, situated where the River Towy is crossed by the A483 road, A483 on a 19th-century stone bridge. At the 2021 United Kingdom census, 2021 census the community had ...

and

Llandovery Llandovery (; ) is a market town and community (Wales), community in Carmarthenshire, Wales. It lies on the River Tywi and at the junction of the A40 road, A40 and A483 road, A483 roads, about north-east of Carmarthen, north of Swansea and w ...

, near the A40. The village consists of a number of dispersed farmhouses, most of which were built in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. In the twentieth century, a number of small houses were built near to the A40, transforming the village into a 'small nucleated settlement'. Welcome to Cwmifor sign

History

It is likely that the name Cwmifor derived from a person's name ('Cwm Ifor' means "Ifor's Valley"). An extensive

Neolithic The Neolithic or New Stone Age (from Ancient Greek, Greek 'new' and 'stone') is an archaeological period, the final division of the Stone Age in Mesopotamia, Asia, Europe and Africa (c. 10,000 BCE to c. 2,000 BCE). It saw the Neolithic Revo ...

(4000–2200 BC) occupation site comprising numerous pits and post-holes, with finds of burnt bone, flints and charcoal, was recorded at Cwmifor. A

Roman road Roman roads ( ; singular: ; meaning "Roman way") were physical infrastructure vital to the maintenance and development of the Roman state, built from about 300 BC through the expansion and consolidation of the Roman Republic and the Roman Em ...

known as the Via Julia ran east to west at the northern extremity of the settlement. A

turnpike road A toll road, also known as a turnpike or tollway, is a public or private road for which a fee (or ''toll'') is assessed for passage. It is a form of road pricing typically implemented to help recoup the costs of road construction and maintenance ...

was established in the eighteenth century and followed the line of the Roman road although the course through Cwmifor was straightened under

Thomas Telford Thomas Telford (9 August 1757 – 2 September 1834) was a Scottish civil engineer. After establishing himself as an engineer of road and canal projects in Shropshire, he designed numerous infrastructure projects in his native Scotland, as well ...

in the 1820s. A meeting of a group of Rebecca Rioters took place in graveyard of village's Baptist Chapel in 1843 and was reported in ''The Times.'' This is one of the few meetings of the Rebecca Rioters infiltrated by the press. The village remained a dispersed settlement into the 1880s, with an

Ordnance Survey The Ordnance Survey (OS) is the national mapping agency for Great Britain. The agency's name indicates its original military purpose (see Artillery, ordnance and surveying), which was to map Scotland in the wake of the Jacobite rising of ...

map from 1886 showing a public house, a parish church, and a

Baptist Baptists are a Christian denomination, denomination within Protestant Christianity distinguished by baptizing only professing Christian believers (believer's baptism) and doing so by complete Immersion baptism, immersion. Baptist churches ge ...

chapel. Several prominent farms and houses are also named on the map, many of which remain today (Cae Mawr, Pen-y-Waen, and Penhill). In 2002, Carmarthenshire Council earmarked the village primary school for closure. According to one report, the school had twenty three pupils at the time of the decision. In 2007, it was reported on social media that the school had a total of seven pupils.

Landmarks

St Paul's Church is a nineteenth-century church in Cwmifor. While it was originally designed as a Roman Catholic church, it became an Anglican chapel of ease once it was completed. The church is built of squared stone. A Baptist chapel was built in 1789, enlarged in 1836 and renovated in 1864. It is built in the simple round-headed style with a long-wall entry plan. The village hall, or reading room, is next door to St Paul's Church. Manordeilo and Salem Community Council meet in the village hall each month.

References

{{coord, 51, 54, 47, N, 3, 57, 01, W, type:city_region:GB, display=title Populated places in Carmarthenshire