From Francis Green in Y Cymmrodor vol XV p145

I have found no record showing when the old Manor House at Boulstonwas built.  All that is left of it now are the few ruins shown in the illustrations.  Standing close to the bank of the western arm of the river Cleddau - the high tides admit of small boats being brought right up to the walls - it is easy to realise that the owners in days gone by might be tempted to try and evade the gauger. 

  Overgrown as the site is by trees and briars it is almost impossible to form any idea as to the different apartments.  One or two vaults remain, and appearances indicate that the ground floor, if one may so describe it, stood over vaulted cellars. A good deal of the stone has been carried away and used probably for the erection of the present mansion by Colonel Ackland.  The walls of the tower shown in the small illustration are three feet thick.  The house would appear to have been one of the old castellated residences in Pembrokeshire which were capable of defence, and this seems the more likely as there are traces of a small moat to the north and east of the ruins.

Fenton in his History of Pembrokeshire, written in 1810, says that the Manor House had been uninhabited for one hundred and fifty years, but this is clearly an exaggeration, as the entries in the Wogan Bible show that the youngest of Lewis Wogan's children was born there in 1699.  It is probable that it was after the death of Lewis Wogan that the house was deserted.  Anne Laugharne, his daughter, seems never to have lived there after her marriage, and at the date of her death resided at St. Bride's.

                The Old Manor House in 1901                                                                                              The "New" Manor House in 2002                                                                              

Aerial View of Boulston c2000

 Back