The Mantles 

Alternative spellings:               Mantel, Mantell – English from the Anglo Norman French word for cloak or coat.

Surname origin:          1.         Melonymic occupational name for a maker of overgarments

2.         Nickname for someone who wore a cloak of a particular conspicuous design

At the time of writing this, Evan Mantle, David's great great great grandfather (and one more great for Sheila), is as far back as we have been able to trace on the Mantle name. He was a farmer owning 7 to 10 acres of land, depending upon which record you read, in an area called Pwlperan, in the Parish of Llanbadarn Fynydd, Radnorshire. The English interpretation of this village name, according to ‘A Study of Radnorshire Place Names’ by Richard Morgan, means 'St Padarn's Church in the Mountains'. Pwlperan or Pwelch Perran as the Tithe Map of 1840 refers to it as, according to our translation from a Welsh dictionary, means 'Pear shaped pool' pwl meaning pool, peran meaning pear.

So how did we find this remote area of Wales  from whence our ancestors came? We already had  place names that looked like Llanbadarn and Pwllperan, on Alexander Mantle’s Birth Certificate, but these were not very clear, as this was a photocopy of the original document of 1866. We traced Llanbadarn on a modern OS map but there was no sign of Pwllperan. So one fine day we set off for Llanbadarn to have a look around the area. There is no village as such just a few houses, a church and a pub ‘The New Inn’, and as it was lunchtime we popped in for some refreshments. It was whilst talking to the barmaid we asked if she knew of any Mantles in the area and were directed to a Mrs Thomas  (nee Mantle) who lived on the outskirts of Llanbister, the next village to the South. Although an old lady, Mrs Thomas was very helpful and promised to contact her brother in law, who was born at Llyn-Dwr in the Pwllperan  area,  to find out if he had any information. True to her word she did, and a few weeks later we received a copy of an old map upon which was marked clearly a cottage called Pwllperan, also several other small cottages dotted about. One of the buildings, on the map, was identified by Mrs Thomas’s brother in law as ‘Mantle House’. From the old map and an OS map we were able to actually pin point where the area of Pwllperan was, and on another visit we managed to find the location.

I am sorry to say that six months after our first visit Mrs Thomas died, one could say that our visit to the pub was one of those “lucky breaks” that we sometimes get, and we shall be forever indebted to Mrs Thomas and her brother in law without whose help we may not have ever found the area of our Mantle roots.

On the life of Evan prior to his first marriage in Llan-bardarn on the 29    May 1800 to Mary (Biston), we have no knowedge, other than he was born about 1770, if the age on his burial record is to be believed.  We have put brackets around

Mary’s surname of Biston and this is what we will call her, for continuity sake, for when reading the Marriage Record there is no doubt that this is the way her name appears.  We have, however, only ever been able to find one other Biston in the records, but there are plenty of Buftons, which had previously  been ignored until it was realised that the Welsh pronunciation of Bufton would be Bifton and could be quite easily have been misheard at the time as Biston.

The home, in which Evan and Mary lived, was called 'Mantle House'. We had at one time thought that a derelict cottage marked on the map as Pwlperan (see photo below) was the cottage in which they lived, and not ‘Mantle House’, although we do know that in 1813 an Elizabeth Mantle, living in ‘Mantle House’, gave birth to an illegitimate daughter also named Elizabeth, who Elizabeth was we have found no information at all. Since obtaining copies of the Tithe Apportionments and Maps (circa 1840) we have now been able to ascertain that it was ‘Mantle House’ that Evan owned and occupied. This was a bit disappointing, but nevertheless the cottage does give us an insight into the type of home that they must have lived in. On one census it refers to the family living at Middle Pwlperan, and 'Mantle House' is roughly in the middle of the four cottages mentioned previously

When we first visited the area the foundations of ‘Mantle House’ were still there, but I am sorry to say that this is not the case today. The cottage that we have been visiting still stands,  although derelict,  and ‘Mantle House’ would have been roughly the same, its only inhabitants now are birds and the odd sheep, we did once have the good fortune of seeing a barn owl fly out of it.

Let your imagination take over as we try to describe what it must have been like. Pwlperan is in the back of beyond, nestling in the folds of the hills some 10 miles from Newtown, a beautiful spot, what a lovely holiday cottage it would make, then you come back to reality. Let me try and help you get there, take the A483 (Newtown to Llandrindod Wells Road) after about 7 miles you take a right turn towards Pentre, another mile then a left turn down a very minor road towards a wind farm, after this you have a mile of farm track to negotiate which includes fording a small stream,  and at a bend in the track this is where ‘Mantle House’ once stood. To get to the other cottage you have to continue straight on through a gate for two hundred yards across a field, trying to miss all the sheep droppings. Stop for a while, take in those views all around you, the silence broken only by the bleat of the sheep and the call of the Buzzard overhead, the same sounds that Evan and Mary  would have heard every day of their lives. The Buzzards are where we let our imagination really take over, nearly everywhere we have looked for the Mantles we have found Buzzards, we have even given them names (David and Elizabeth),  we have always felt as though they were trying to tell us something, trying to say "you have come home, you have found us" a flight of fancy, who knows! 

The cottage with its typical grey stonewalls, would originally have had a slate roof, but now is bedecked with corrugated iron sheeting. It is just a two up and two down building, like the majority of the others that the small farmers in this area lived in. The front door is in the centre of the cottage with a room either side of it. Both rooms have a fireplace, these were not just for keeping you warm, but also for cooking, and one has a bread oven inserted in the side of it. They were also the only means of heating water for a bath, which would have been in a tin tub in one of the rooms, unless you fancied going down the hill to the stream and having a cold dip. 

The bedrooms upstairs were situated in the roof; remember at the time Evan and his family lived there, a candle or an oil lamp would be the only light that they would have, in fact it would still be today, no gas or electricity are connected. As for water the nearest we found was down a hill in the small stream mentioned above; idyllic! no, except for the views.  

Evan and Mary's life would have been hard, up at daybreak and bed at dusk. Because of the terrain his land would not have sustained crops, he would most probably have been a sheep farmer, with possibly a small garden for his own use and maybe some left over to sell at the nearest market. The cottage possibly would have had other buildings, a pigsty or cowshed, the remains of which can still be seen. It was not unusual for a man in Evan's position to keep a cow for the family's milk, and for his wife to make her own cheese and butter, even possibly one or two pigs whose piglets would also be sold at market, maybe one or two kept to supplement the families food store. Don’t forget there would be no refrigerator or freezer and the meat would have to be cured before being stored. It is possible that chickens were also kept, their eggs being a valuable part of the family’s diet and when the hens got too old for laying they would make a good dinner. 

As far as we have been able to ascertain Mary bore Evan 3 children, Evan in 1802, Mary 1804, and Elizabeth 1806. It is always difficult to be 100% certain, as baptism records do not always give full information  of where they lived or even their parents full names, only the bare facts.  For instance the records show “Evan son of Evan Mantle by his wife”, “Mary daughter of Evan Mantle”, and “Elizabeth daughter of Evan Mantle by Mary his wife”. Evan, the son, we will come to later in our story, Mary, we have at the time of writing, no knowledge, and the story of Elizabeth we will unfold once again later, from what we have found out it makes interesting reading 

By 1833 we presume that Mary had died but as this was prior to official records being kept, we have been unable to find out when it actually happened. A burial record would have been of help if we had been able to find one, certainly there is no record of a burial at Llanbadarn  Church, and the records of a small chapel at Pentre, closer to Pwllperan, have been lost. What we do know is that Evan remarried, this time to a Jane Evans on 1 July 1833 at Llanbadarn, a child Sarah was baptised to them on 22 August 1835, and a second child Thomas born on 27 September 1839. By the 1841 census Jane had left  Evan taking Thomas with her, she was found living as a servant in the home of a David Pryce - farmer. Evan died in 1842 and the home and 10 Acres of land passed into the hands of his son Evan, more on that later. It is his daughter Elizabeth that we will concentrate on for the next few paragraphs. 

Elizabeth Mantle daughter of Evan  

What you are about to read are the facts, which are on record, and although we have our own ideas, we leave others to make up their minds as to what happened. Whilst living at home with her father Elizabeth gave birth to at least 4 illegitimate children, David, Richard, Edward/Evan and Ann, the last one about the same time as her stepmother gave birth to Thomas. The Parish Records of their baptisms do not give the name of their father or fathers as the case may be. Her father must have been very understanding, for a daughter to have one illegitimate child living with them is one thing, but to have 4 that is stretching it a bit far. As already stated the baptism records of Elizabeth’s children give no indication of the father’s names, but the marriage records of both her sons, Edward and David’s second marriage, give the father’s name as Evan Mantle. We will leave you to draw your own conclusions on this. By 1851 Elizabeth had left the cottage and we find her living alone in a place called Esgairgeiliog, which is situated between Pentre and Mochdre; her daughter Ann, who was only 11, was living on a farm in Llanbadarn Fynydd as a housemaid. We found Elizabeth by pure accident, while looking for David on the 1861 census, when we found Ann Mantle living with Evan and Elizabeth Williams. Elizabeth’s age was the same as our Elizabeth’s would have been, and upon checking the marriage records we found that she had married Evan Williams at the end of 1851. Evan was a shoemaker by trade, and they were living at Handidley near Newtown. Also living with them was a grandson, Charles, whom we presume is Ann’s son, although she is unmarried, perhaps she was taking after her mother. Of Elizabeth’s other children the information that we have is: 

David, we next encounter on the 1861 census still in Llanbadarn, working as a Labourer, presumably in agriculture. He is now living with an Elizabeth Lloyd with two children, Mary Ann and Richard. We have been unable to find a marriage record for David and Elizabeth, but know her maiden name from the birth certificate of one of her children. They next appear on the 1871 census still in Llanbadarn with a further five children, John, David, Elizabeth, James and Caroline. We have found a death record of an Elizabeth Mantle in the June quarter of 1875 in the Knighton registration district, which we believe to be David’s wife. 

David later turns up on the 1881 census, now living in Merthyr Tydfil with a new wife Charlotte. His occupation is now shown as ‘Ostler’, presumably this would have been at one the many coal mines in the area. Although as we say, it shows Charlotte as his wife on the 1881 census we know that they didn’t marry until 1886, and from their marriage certificate we know that Charlotte was a widow, surname Hellyer, and that her maiden name was Harding. 

David and Charlotte died within months of each other in 1906/7 at Merthyr Tydfil; David is buried in the same grave as two of his son’s, James, who died aged 14, and Richard 56. 

Richard the only information that we have, is that Richard was still unmarried in 1881, still living in Llanbadarn and his occupation is given as a Roadman.  

Edward/Evan although his baptism record  gives his name as Edward, on the 1841 census he is referred to as Evan, we can only assume that this was an error on the enumerator’s part as no record exists of the baptism of an Evan at this time. Edward  married  a Miriam Price, who was 11 years older than him, in Llananno in 1856, the marriage record shows his father as Evan. Although the marriage shows Miriam as single, on the 1861 census there is a stepdaughter, Sarah Price, living with them. Edward and Miriam went on to have at least 6 children, so far no record has been found of their deaths.

Evan son of Evan  

On 4 April 1831 Evan jnr married  Mary Thomas in Llangunllo, how he came to meet Mary is a mystery, we can only surmise that he was living and working in the village, but by the 1841 census they are to be found living  on a farm called Lower Spoad, which lies between Clun and Newcastle in Shropshire on the B4368. His occupation is given as agricultural labourer and only two of his children have been born,  David baptised 23 October 1831 at Clun Church, his place of birth is given as Swinscattle,  and James baptised 26 May 1839 also at Clun Church, his place of birth is given as Yew Tree, nr Newcastle. On a visit to ‘Lower Spoad Farm’ we tried to locate Swinscattle,  but to no avail, we are not even sure if this is an area or a farm, hopefully sometime in the future we will be able to look at Tithe Maps with a possibility of locating it.

By 1844  Evan was back home in Pwllperan, we presume that this would have been just after the death of his father, as a third son Thomas was born to him and Mary in that year and was baptised at Llanbadarn Church on 13 October. On the 1851 census we have Evan jnr, Mary, James and Thomas living at Pwllperan but there is no trace of David. Evan died at Pwllperan on the 28 December 1864, and is buried at Llanbadarn. Mary was still alive on the 1871 census but died shortly after this on 30 October 1871, of her burial we have once again been unable to find any record.

James & Thomas - Sons of Evan and Mary Mantle  

James, we at first believed had married someone called Leah and had at least three children, this information we had taken from an  1881 Census Record for a James Mantle, born at Clun, but now living in Merthyr Tydfil. This we have recently found out to be incorrect after sending for the Birth Certificate of one of the children shown on the census record as the daughter of Leah. This showed no father’s name, the mother’s name as Leah Mantle, with no former name given, meaning that she was an unmarried  woman. More searching was needed, and sure enough it paid off, we found James getting married in November 1884 to a Martha McDonald, a widow. Although the 1881 census showed James as a brother-in-law to the head of the house, Samuel Smout, and Leah as a sister-in-law, what relation James is to Leah Mantle is still a mystery.  As you can see in a previous paragraph his cousin David lived and died  in Merthyr Tydfil after leaving  Llanbadarn Fynydd.  

Thomas  married a Mary Stephens in 1865 at Newtown, they had 9 children, and lived most of their married lives in Mochdre, his occupation on the Census Records is given as a farmer. Thomas, died in 1924, and is buried along with Mary and at least 2 of his children in All Saints Church, Mochdre. 

The story of David Mantle from whom we are descended, we will leave until a later chapter, we will in the next chapter talk about the ancestry of Mary Thomas. 

A Copy of the 1841 Census of Evan & Mary living at Lower Spoad