[edit]
Early history[edit]
Main article: Moridunum (Carmarthen)
See also: Black Book of Carmarthen
Carmarthen Castle, main gateway
A page from Carmarthen Borough's Book of Ordinances, 1582
When Britannia was a Roman province, Carmarthen was the civitas capital of the Demetae tribe, known as Moridunum ("Sea Fort"). It is possibly the oldest town in Wales, recorded by Ptolemy and in the Antonine Itinerary. The Roman fort is believed to date from about AD 75. A Roman coin hoard was found nearby in 2006. Near the fort is one of seven surviving Roman amphitheatres in Britain and only two in Roman Wales (the other being at Isca Augusta, Roman Caerleon). Excavated in 1968, the Carmarthen fort has an arena of 50 by 30 yards (about 46 by 27 metres); the cavea (seating area) is 100 by 73 yards (92 by 67 metres). Michael Veprauskas (1998) argued for identifying it as the Cair Guorthigirn ("Fort Vortigern") listed by Nennius among the 28 cities of Britain in his History of the Britons. Evidence of the early Roman town has been investigated for several years, revealing urban sites likely to date from the 2nd century.
During the Middle Ages, the settlement then known as Llanteulyddog ('St Teulyddog's) accounted one of the seven principal sees (Cantrefi) in Dyfed. The strategic importance of Carmarthen caused the Norman William fitz Baldwin to build a castle there, probably about 1094. The current castle site is known to have been occupied since 1105. The castle itself was destroyed by Llywelyn the Great in 1215, but rebuilt in 1223, when permission was given for a town wall and crenellations, making it one of the first medieval walled towns in Wales. In 1405, the town was captured and the castle sacked by Owain Glyndŵr. The Black Book of Carmarthen of about 1250 is associated with the town's Priory of SS John the Evangelist and Teulyddog.
The Black Death of 1347–1349 arrived in Carmarthen with the thriving river trade. It destroyed and devastated villages such as Llanllwch. Local historians cite the plague pit for the mass burial of the dead in the graveyard that adjoins the Maes-yr-Ysgol and Llys Model housing at the rear of St Catherine Street.
Priory[edit]
Main article: Carmarthen Priory
In 1110, the ancient Clas church of Llandeulyddog, an independent, pre-Norman religious community, became the Benedictine Priory of St Peter, only to be replaced 15 years later by the Augustinian Priory of St John the Evangelist and St Teulyddog. This stood near the river, at what is now Priory Street (51°51′36″N 4°17′51″W / 51.8601°N 4.2975°W / 51.8601; -4.2975 (St John's Priory), SN418204). The site is now a scheduled monument.
Grey Friars[edit]
Franciscan Friars (Grey Friars, or Friars minor) became established in the town in the 13th century, and by 1284 had their own Friary buildings in Lammas Street (51°51′21″N 4°18′33″W / 51.855794°N 4.309076°W / 51.855794; -4.309076 (Carmarthen Greyfriars)), on a site now holding a shopping centre. The Franciscan emphasis on poverty and simplicity meant the church was smaller (some "70 to 80 feet long and 30 feet broad" – 21/24 by 9 m) and more austere than the older foundations, but this did not prevent an accumulation of treasures, as it became a sought-after location for burial. In 1456 Edmund Tudor, 1st Earl of Richmond died of plague in Carmarthen, three months before the birth of his son, the future King Henry VII. Edmund was buried in a prominent tomb in the centre of the choir of the Grey Friars Church. Other notables buried there were Rhys ap Thomas and Tudur Aled.
The Friary was dissolved in 1538, and many unsuccessful plans were made for the building. Even before the friars had left in 1536, William Barlow campaigned to have the cathedral moved into it from St David's, where the tomb and remains of Edmund Tudor were moved after the Carmarthen buildings were deconsecrated. There were repeated attempts to turn the buildings into a grammar school. Gradually they became ruined, although the church walls were still recognisable in the mid-18th century. By 1900 all the stonework had been stripped off and there were no traces above ground. The site remained undeveloped until the 1980s and 1990s, after extensive archaeological excavations of first the monastic buildings and then the nave and chancel of the church. These confirmed that the former presence of a church, a chapter house and a large cloister, with a smaller cloister and infirmary added later. Over 200 graves were found in the churchyard and 60 around the friars' choir.
Arthurian legend[edit]
Merlin, from the Nuremberg Chronicle (1493)
Geoffrey of Monmouth, writing in 1188, began the legend that Merlin was born in a cave outside Carmarthen. The town's Welsh name, Caerfyrddin, is widely claimed to mean "Merlin's fort", but a reverse etymology is also suggested: the name Merlin may have originated from the town's name in the anglicised form of Myrddin. (See Merlin § Name). An alternative explanation is that Myrddin is a corruption of the town's Roman name, Moridunum, meaning "sea fort."
Legend also had it that if a certain tree called Merlin's Oak fell, it would bring the downfall of the town. Translated from Welsh, it reads: "When Merlin's Oak comes tumbling down/Down shall fall Carmarthen Town." To obstruct this, the tree was dug up when it died; pieces of it remain in the town museum.
The Black Book of Carmarthen includes poems that refer to Myrddin (Ymddiddan Myrddin a Thaliesin, "Conversation of Merlin and Taliesin") and possibly to Arthur (Pa ŵr yw'r Porthor?, "What man is the porter?"). Interpretation of these is difficult, as the Arthurian legends were known by this time and details of the modern form had been described by Geoffrey of Monmouth before the book was written. Some historians suggest that Vortigern along with his army from Powys may have invaded the Ystrad Tywi in order to gain control of it but had to retreat either due to local rebels fighting back or being defeated by Dyfed, but in the process may have kidnapped a young Merlin from Carmarthen hence why the character is legendary within the town.
Early modern[edit]
John Speed's 1610 map of Carmarthen.
Carmarthen, 1823
Carmarthen, Entrance from the Bridge, 1865
One of the earliest recorded Eisteddfodau took place at Carmarthen in about 1451, presided over by Gruffudd ap Nicolas.
The Book of Ordinances (1569–1606) is one of the earliest surviving minute books of a town in Wales. It gives a unique picture of an Elizabethan town.
After the incorporation of Wales into the legal system of England, Carmarthen became judicial headquarters of the Court of Great Sessions for south-west Wales. The town's dominant pursuits in the 16th and 17th centuries were still agriculture and related trades, including woollen manufacture.
The Priory and the Friary were abandoned after the dissolution of the monasteries under Henry VIII. The chapels of St Catherine and St Barbara were lost. The Church of St Peter's survived as the main religious establishment. During the Marian persecutions of the 1550s, Bishop Ferrar of St David's was burnt at the stake in the market square – now Nott Square. His life and death as a Protestant martyr are recorded in Foxe's Book of Martyrs.
In 1689, John Osborne, 1st Earl of Danby, was created 1st Marquess of Carmarthen by William III. He was then created Duke of Leeds in 1694, and Marquess of Carmarthen became the courtesy title for the Duke's heir apparent until the Dukedom became extinct on the death of the 12th Duke in 1964.
18th century to present[edit]
In 1746, the Society of Friends (Quakers) erected the first Friends’ meeting house in Gell Street (alternatively named Geer Street or Lamas Street). The cost of building it was raised by subscription among the Quakers. There had been a Quaker presence in Carmarthen since 1700, but it was not until 1746 that they had their own building.
In the mid-18th century, the Morgan family founded a small ironworks at the east end of the town. In 1786 lead smelting was established to process the ore carried from Lord Cawdor's mines at Nantyrmwyn, in the north-east of Carmarthenshire. Neither of these firms survived for long. The lead smelting moved to Llanelli in 1811. The ironworks evolved into a tinplate works that had failed by about 1900. The borough corporation was reformed by a 1764 charter and again by the Municipal Corporations Act 1835.
In the late 18th century John Spurrell, an auctioneer from Bath, settled in Carmarthen. He was the grandson of Robert Spurrell, a Bath schoolmaster, who printed the city's first book, The Elements of Chronology in 1730. In 1840, a printing press was set up in Carmarthen by William Spurrell (1813–1889), who wrote a history of the town and compiled and published an 1848 Welsh-English dictionary and an 1850 English–Welsh dictionary. Today's Collins Welsh dictionary is known as the "Collins Spurrell". A local housing authority in Carmarthen is named Heol Spurrell in honour of the family.
The origins of Chartism in Wales can be traced to the foundation in the autumn of 1836 of Carmarthen Working Men's Association.
Carmarthen jail, authorised by the Carmarthen Improvement Act 1792 (32 Geo. 3. c. 104) and designed by John Nash, was in use from about the year 1789 until its demolition in 1922. The site is now taken by County Hall, designed by Sir Percy Thomas. The jail's "Felons' Register" of 1843–1871 contains some of the earliest photographs of criminals in Britain. In 1843, the workhouse in Carmarthen was attacked by the Rebecca Rioters.
The revival of the Eisteddfod as an institution took place in Carmarthen in 1819. The town hosted the National Eisteddfod in 1867, 1911 and 1974, although at least in 1974, the Maes was at Abergwili.
Carmarthen Grammar School was founded in 1587 on a site now occupied by the old hospital in Priory Street. The school moved in the 1840s to Priory Row, before relocating to Richmond Terrace. At the turn of the 20th century, a local travelling circus buried one of its elephants that fell sick and died. The grave is under what was the rugby pitch.
The population in 1841 was 9,526.
World War II prisoner-of-war camps were placed in Johnstown (where the Davies Estate now stands) and at Glangwili — the huts being used as part of the hospital since its inception. To the west of the town was the "Carmarthen Stop Line", one of a network of defensive lines created in 1940–1941 in case of invasion, with a series of ditches and pill boxes running north and south. Most have since been removed or filled in, but two remain.
The Carmarthen community is bordered by those of Bronwydd, Abergwili, Llangunnor, Llandyfaelog, Llangain, Llangynog and Newchurch and Merthyr, all in Carmarthenshire.
Carmarthen was named as one of the best places to live in Wales in 2017.
