HISTORY OF LLANBADARN FAWR, POWYS
As in other rural parishes in the area, most of the people of Llanbadarn Fawr would have been involved in farming or working on the land in some way. There would have been local craftsmen like wheelwrights and tailors providing a much-needed service to the community.
Llanbadarn Fawr though had for a long time benefited from better transport
links. Crossgates was where two turnpike roads met, and when the railway was
built, Penybont station was built here. The parish was close enough to the newly
developing town of Llandrindod Wells to allow people to travel there for work.
Extract from a "Topographical Dictionary of Wales - 1833"
"LLANBADARN-VAWR (LLAN-BADARN-VAWR), a parish in the hundred of KEVENLLEECE,
county of RADNOR, SOUTH WALES, comprising the village of Pen y Bont, where there
is a receiving-house for letters, and containing 491 inhabitants. It is situated
on the river Ithon : the high road from Builth to Newtown runs through it,
passing close by the church, within a few hundred yards of which it is crossed
by that from Kington to Rhaiadr and Aberystwith, which also traverses it. The
surface is for the most part irregular, and the soil in the low lands consists
chiefly of clay : the only mansion is Pen y Bont Hall, the residence of I.
C. Severn, Esq. ; and Pen y Bont Court is a genteel residence, forming from its
elevated situation a pleasing object. The village of Pen y Bont, the post-Office
at which is dependent on those at Kington and Rhaiadr, consists only of about a
dozen houses, one of them an excellent inn, at which the petty sessions for the
hundred of Kevenlleece are occasionally held. The living is a discharged
rectory, in the archdeaconry of Brecknock, and diocese of St. David's,
rated in the king's books at £7. 12. 6., and in the patronage of the Bishop of
St. David's. The church, dedicated to St. Paternus, is situated about a mile and
a half from Pen y Bont, and consists of a nave and chancel; the latter ceiled,
with an entrance porch : the churchyard contains some fine yew trees. There are
places of worship for Anabaptists and Calvinistic Methodists, the former of
which is endowed with a portion of land. There are two small bequests of ten
shillings per annum each for the poor, one paid out of the tenement of Cwm
Trallong, in this parish, and the other out of a farm called Lluest, in that of
Llandewi Ystradenny. Near Pen y Bont there is a chalybeate spring, which is not
in high repute, being but little known. The average annual expenditure for the
support of the poor is £ 185. 9."