- According to legend, an angel carrying a bag of rocks flew over the countryside and dropped rocks to mark where future Christian churches should be erected. One rock slipped out and landed in Tirabad, where St. David's Church was established.
Saint David, the chief Bishop of Wales, in 519 A.D. journeyed to the River Irgon and founded seven churches in the valley, including Llandewi in Tirabad. In 1716, Sir Sackville Gwynne of Glanbran established the present St. David's Church. - According to the University of Wales, an Anglo-Norman knight established the Cistercian monastery of Strata Florida in 1164. The Lord Rhys of Deheubarth, Prince of Powys, endowed Strata Florida Abbey with the lands of Tirabad, on the edge of Crychan Forest. Strata Florida produced manuscripts of the early Welsh history, the Chronicle of the Princes.
- Outside Tirabad, a smallholding known as Spite Inn Farm, possibly from the 18th century, served as a drovers' inn for drovers bringing sheep from Wales to market in England. Following a decline in sheep farming in the 1920s, the government purchased several farms in 1928, according to the Crychan Forest Association. At the start of World War II, farm families who spent generations in Tirabad had to move out to make way for an artillery range. In the 1950s, the Forestry Commission implemented plantations, homes for forestry workers, a school and a village hall.
St. David's Church
Monastery
20th Century History
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