Bettws-y-Crwyn

Bettws-y-Crwyn is a small, remote village and civil parish in south-west Shropshire, England. It is close to the England–Wales border and is one of a number of English villages to have a Welsh language placename.

==Name== The first part of the name of the village is the Welsh bet(t)ws, a borrowing from the Old English bed-hus, meaning 'prayer house' or 'chapel'. In Welsh, crwyn (the plural of croen) usually means 'skins, hides, pelts'. Hence Betws-y-Crwyn appears at first to mean 'chapel of the hides'. However, Eilert Ekwall suggested that the form that now appears as crwyn 'may be Welsh crowyn 'pigsty' '. In this he has been followed by Margaret Gelling and the University of Nottingham's 'Key to English Place-names' project . The Welsh noun crowyn has a range of meanings, including 'shed where animals are kept, sty, coop, kennel; creel, basket'.