Radnorshire

Radnorshire (Sir Faesyfed) is one of thirteen and former administrative counties of. It comprises the central part of, and from 1974 to 1996 constituted the in Powys.

According to the 2001 census, the shire had a population of 24,805.  It is bounded to the north by and, to the east by , to the south by  and to the west by. The county was formed from the s of, and  and the  of  by the. is considered the, although it historically shared administrative functions with where the  sat. Radnor County Council and later the District Council were based instead at.

Geography
Area 301,164 acres (1,219 km²). In the east and south are some comparatively level tracts, including the Vale of Radnor, but most of the county is mountainous, with the running through the west of the county. The highest point is at, 2,166 ft (660 m). The contains several huge man-made reservoirs supplying water to. The main rivers are the, The , the Elan and the.

The chief towns are, , , , and. The main industries are tourism and hill farming. It is said that out number people in Radnorshire by 50:1, giving it a sheep population of over 1,000,000.

Heraldry
The arms of the county date from. The arms are made up of charges from local families. The gold reguardant lion on red is for, c.1000. The black boars' heads on white are for his son. Around these is a gold and blue compony bordure from the arms of the ,

The motto of the county was Higher and Higher' (Ewch yn Uwch).

History and Culture
The geographic territory of the historic county roughly corresponds with the Welsh kingdom of which was annexed to  at the end of the 11th Century. Radnorshire is a poor county and has been an historical backwater but occasionally has drifted to the forefront of history. The most notable events are the fought on June 22,  during the rebellion of, and the founding of.

The county's poverty was remarked upon thus in the by an anonymous visitor: Poor Radnorsheer, poor Radnorsheer,

Never a park, and never a deer, Never a squire of five hundred a year, Save Richard Fowler of Abbey-Cwm-hir

Apart from a handful of parishes along the English border the remained the first language of the county well into the second half of the eighteenth century. By 1850 the language had retreated to the western parishes of, , , , and. By 1900 Welsh was still spoken by a sizeable minority west of the town of, the language disappearing as the century progressed. Of course there were Welsh speakers living in Radnorshire who had come from other parts of Wales and today their number has been swelled by children being educated through the medium of Welsh in school.

An estimate of the current distribution of Welsh speakers in the area at bwrdd-yr-iaith/The Welsh Language Board

The area historically had the following custom:

"Go North for a wife, go South for a life"

This was for Radnorshire men as the custom was to go North to find a wife, but to settle down South.

Places of special interest

 * Abbey Cwmhir aka ;
 * Tumuli ;
 * Broadheath House, ;
 * Visitor's Centre ;
 * The Pales ;
 * The Rock Park,.
 * The Rock Park,.

Principal towns and villages
No centre in Radnorshire exceeds a population of 6,000; only 1 exceeds 5,000:



Radnorshire diaspora
Poverty and agricultural change, decline and industrial progress elsewhere has always made Radnorshire a place of net emigration. Emigrants employed the name of the county in the Others may have formed part of the Welsh community in
 * . Part of the first settled in - by a group of 40  from Radnorshire
 * . Part of the first settled in - by a group of 40  from Radnorshire