That 'lost' Welsh village that keeps showing up wrong on maps

I was looking at an 1840s map of the Gower Peninsula last night and noticed something odd. There's this place called Rhossili that some modern digital maps still mark as a separate village when it's really just part of the same parish. I've seen it on three different antique maps from the 1700s where the border lines cut right through what was clearly one farming community. My great uncle lived in the area for 40 years and he always laughed when tourists asked for directions to the "lost village" because it never actually vanished. The confusion comes from a 19th century cartographer who misread some old land records and split it in two. Has anyone else run into a phantom place like this on their old maps? I'd love to hear what other fake spots are floating around out there.

2 comments

2 Comments

robinson.matthew4d ago

Wait, is that the same kind of thing as the "lost" village of Hallsands in Devon? I swear my dad used to point out a spot on an old fishing chart that showed a whole row of houses nobody had ever heard of. Turns out it was just a mislabeled farm, lol.

ryan_flores4d ago

Funny you mention Hallsands, @robinson.matthew, because I actually read a book about lost coastal villages last year. Dunwich in Suffolk is a famous one - whole town fell into the sea over centuries. There's even a legend you can hear church bells underwater on quiet nights. Pretty sure that's just wind and waves though. What got me was how many of these places were legitimately settled and then just... gone. Not mislabeled farms, just swallowed up by the ocean or buried by sand.