of England, was established in 1871, in the building now known as Ty Colwyn, with 27 children on the original register. From 1875 the school was funded through a voluntary Parish rate. The present village school (Church in Wales) was built in 1970. In addition to the Anglican church, several Nonconformist chapels existed in the village, and were popular with Welsh-language speakers. Seion Calvinistic Methodist (Presbyterian) Chapel was built in 1830, surviving until 1996. Ebenezer Baptist Chapel was founded in 1843 and a building established in 1852, using part of Chapel Farm House. It continued in use until 1944, and a baptismal pool was created by blocking off a stream in the field below and to the rear of the chapel. In 1865, a village branch of the Philanthropic Order of True Ivorites was established, based at the Sycamore Tree Inn, conducting its business in Welsh. This provided a vehicle for villagers with independent incomes to save, and then possibly to buy, their own properties. It finally closed in 1960, and the order as a whole disbanded in the early 1970s. The 1811 A Topographical Dictionary of The Dominion of Wales by Nicholas Carlisle said of the village: 20th century The population of the village began to grow away from its agricultural origins, with some emigration to the South Wales coalfields by those seeking industrial employment, whilst the need for intensive labour on farms was reduced by machinery and the village population declined. Some of the original houses fell into disrepair as these population movements took place. Colonel Hubert Cecil Prichard came to live at Pwllywrach after the First World War. His son Hubert de Burgh Prichard famously married Rosalind Hicks, the only daughter of Agatha Christie, their son Mathew Prichard being given the proceeds from the royalties of The Mousetrap. He subsequently used the substantial sums from the play to establish the Colwinston Charitable Trust in 1995. Gradually ‘modern’ features eventually found their way to the village, including mains water in 1935, and electricity and telephone (in the form of a public kiosk) from 1946 onwards. A new water main was laid from the A48 in 1972 and a new sewage scheme laid in 1973. Beech Park was built in the 1960s with other small developments following. The smaller, mostly tenanted, farms became unviable in the latter part of the 20th century. The remaining farm buildings between Church Farm