St Dogmaels (Welsh: Llandudoch) is a village, parish and community in Pembrokeshire, Wales, on the estuary of the River Teifi, a mile downstream from the town of Cardigan in neighbouring Ceredigion.
A little to the north of the village, further along the estuary, lies Poppit Sands beach. The parish includes the small settlement of Cippyn, south of Cemaes Head.
Name.
The English and Welsh names seem to bear no similarity, but it has been suggested that possibly both names refer to the same saint or founder, Dogmael (Dogfael), with ‘mael’ (prince) and ‘tud’ (land or people of) being added to Dog/doch as in Dog mael and Tud doch.
History.
St Dogmaels Abbey is a 12th-century Tironesian and was one of the more affluent monastic institutions in Wales. Adjacent to the abbey ruins is the parish church of St Thomas, which appears successively to have occupied at least three sites close to or within the abbey buildings. The present building is a respectable minor Victorian edifice and contains the Ogam Sagranus stone.
St Dogmaels was once a marcher borough. George Owen of Henllys, in 1603, described it as one of five Pembrokeshire boroughs overseen by a portreeve. The parish appeared (as Sct. Dogmels) on a 1578 parish map of Pembrokeshire.
In the 1830s, the parish's population fell into four areas: Cippyn, Abbey, Pant-y-groes and Bridgend. In 1832, boundary changes meant that a part of Pembrokeshire, including a part of St Dogmaels, was included in Cardiganshire. This was reversed by the Welsh Assembly in 2002.
There are more than 30 listed buildings in the parish, including the parish church, the abbey and the mediaeval flour mill, Y Felin.