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“History on our doorstep and archaeology written in the landscape.”
If you have ever wondered about the origin and meaning of the name ‘Philog’? Here are some alternative views, researched and written in the hope of finding out, once and for all, exactly what is/was the original meaning of the word/name. To do this it was essential to investigate a deeper local history and also the word itself in as many of its ‘forms’ and derivatives as could be found, a lot of it from way, way back in time. The current and popular thinking has it associated with ‘a wing’ or ‘a filly’, so whether or not this gets us any closer to the truth, in the absence of all other evidence, you can decide for yourself.
It has to be said right from the start that, in writing this, the logic and thought processes were constantly challenged and regularly readjusted, as you would no doubt hope and expect. In many cases we are not helped by the written records.
The 1840 map of the area shows the name ‘Filock’ or is it ‘Filocks’? it’s a little
confusing since the name is either close to a building / dwelling, shown in black, or, the black part that might represent a building is a smudged ‘s’ at the end of the name Filock giving us Filocks, perhaps referring to a larger area rather than a fixed location.
Just to clear things up a little, the 1833 map does show it as Filocks , not just that but
it’s shown as an area of land south of the main road running across ‘Whitchurch Common’ to Whitchurch village (y Pentref) and it seems to be a named place in exactly the same way as other parts and places are around and about on the map, in other words, it is not a particular spot on a map, but a wider ‘area’. Unfortunately the map doesn’t inspire too much confidence when you notice that the ‘tumulus’ (Treoda Castle) is not shown in the correct location.
In the tithe map of the period, this land shown as ‘Filock’ was arable and pasture land, owned by Robert Shiddon Esq. and it was occupied by William Vatchell.
The real issue though is trying to establish an explanation or a ‘meaning’ for the name or word ‘Philog’ (as we know it today) and so far it hasn’t been done. British History Online tells us that it was... “[Ffilog]. A brook and a hamlet in the chapelry of Whitchurch, near Gwaun-tre-Oda (1811.) The name is applied particularly to an old thatched house on the north side of the highroad to Whitchurch, where a lane branches off eastwards to the Heath” and this source and description has often been quoted by many people....
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