The Davies Family

of 

Great Hoaten Farm

 St. Ishmael's

Great Hoaten Farm

"In the westerly sector of the parish, near the boundary with St. Brides, were the four messuages of Great, Little, Middle-Hoaten and Hoaten Hill, all marked on Colby's map of 1831  The most important of these was Great Hoaten, home of the Morgan family in the 16th and 17th centuries".  (Source: "Historic Houses of Pembrokeshire and their Families").

In 1786 Great, Middle and Little Hoaten were owned by Thomas Skryme of Veynor and let to farmers.  Great Hoaten was leased to Joseph Davies of Williamston West in the parish of Haroldston, who owned the nearby farm called "Deerland".  Joseph was married to Dinah Cornock the daughter of Peter  Cornock of St. Ishmael's

On her death, Dinah Cornock bequeathed  Great Hoaten to her niece Patty Cornock.  To her other niece, Margaret Cole (sister of Patty), Dinah requeathed Little Hoaten in the parish of St. Brides.   Patty married the Rev. Thomas Rowe   of Penally Court, Penally.  Their daughter, Margaret Rowe married Thomas Davies of Upper Boradmoor, Talbenny and their family farmed Great Hoaten Farm till at least the 1930s. 

My Great, Great Grandmother, Martha Davies was born at Great Hoaten in 1842.  Martha married William Henry Feild of Fold Farm, Herbrandston.

On the lawn at Great Hoaten is an enormous anchor, over seventeen feet in length and with flukes measuring fourteen feet across, which is locally held to be a relic of the Spanish Amada but is actually eighteenth century.  It was found on the beach at St. Bride's Haven and was dragged by teams of horses to its present site sometime during  the 1880s-1890s,  presumably by the Davies family.  It is now thought that the anchor came from the ship “Nymph” from the West Indies   which was wrecked during a violent  storm  in January 1802 on rocks near Nab Head in St. Brides Bay.

The Anchor at Great Hoaten

The Lake at Great Hoaten

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