LLANGYFELACH PARISH CHURCH
Norman Tower and Celtic Graveyard
Llangyfelach was once a county parish which encompassed a large swath
of the former medieval lands of the Lords of Gower (see Oystermouth
Castle Mumbles), though now it is just a small quiet town suburb of Swansea,
with the
only sign
of its former historical importance, the church yard tucked against the
M4 motorway and the village traffic circle. The motorway itself lies
roughly along the route which had been the main road through the Gower
Peninsula since the middle-ages. St David, the patron saint of Wales
(see St
David’s Bishops Palace) founded a monastery on the
site as early as the 6th Century. In the Norman era, the Church of St
David
and
Cyfelach
was
built on the spot in the 12th Century. The church and its monastery was
a pilgrimage stop and had seen visitors from King Edward I on route to
building his castles (see Caernarvon
Castle) to Oliver Cromwell, who confiscated the
lands., but all that remains today is the stone Norman period bell
tower
in the
center
of
an ancient
graveyard.
The present
parish church is housed in a converted former tithe barn, itself from
the Gothic 14th Century. Inside the church can be found the Llangyfelach
Cross, a 9th Century Celtic stone pattern cross.
One
is likely not to notice the old church tower while buzzing past on the
motorway, and to find it in the tangle of village lanes takes a close
scale map or GPS. I had only found my way to Llangyfelach on a family
ancestry travel adventure. A search on Ancestry.com had turned up a record
of an ancestor having been married there. A John Reese a coal miner who
had married a Mary Davies, converted to Mormonism and departed to America
in the 1840s, ultimately settling on a homestead
on what is now Reese Creek outside Bozeman, Montana. The
most striking thing
about
the
church
is not the historic old church tower, one of three freestanding Norman
towers in Wales, but the graveyard, with ancient gravestones completely
overgrown with grass and cloying vines. The old graveyard is circular
in shape indicating its Celtic origin and possibly one of the earliest
Christian settlements in Wales. Beautiful in its untended and forgotten
state, filled with the graves of the names of Rees (the anglicized
Rhys and non-Americanized Reese) and Davies, and Jones, the most common
of Welsh families.
Surely,
I was walking among distant relatives, but some of the stones
are so worn, broken or overgrown, it’s difficult to make out
dates and details.
The
mystery of my own ancestor’s connection to the
church would not be clarified until a visit to the Family History Centre
at the Swansea Civic Centre, the county hall on the revitalized Swansea
waterfront (see Family
History Centre Swansea). There among the old
parish record ledgers of West Glamorgan was the marriage record from
1840.
John E.
Rees,
son
of Evan
Rees from
a village near Llandeilo in Carmathenshire (see Dinefwr
Castle and Newton House) married Mary Davies, daughter
of Thomas Davies of Morriston, (about a mile from the church). The
record
was signed by the parish vicar, also a Davies (as apparently is the
current one).
Plough & Harrow
Across
the traffic circle of the old town square on Swansea Road is the popular
local pub, the 'Plough and Harrow' in a building which dates
back to the 1700s, though it has only been a pub for the last fifty
years or so. Next to the churchyard gate is the old Parish Church
Sunday School, which dates back to
the 1837, still in use as a community center. Whether
you have a family connection to this little forgotten corner of Welsh
history or just love a fascinating and moody old graveyard,
take a turn off the M4 motorway at exit 46, and might as well for a stop
for a pint or at the Plough and Harrow. © Bargain
Travel Europe
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Web Info
Llangyfelach Parish
Family Research Swansea
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SEE ALSO:
CAERPHILLY
CASTLE
MERLIN'S HILL - FORT & FARM B&B
DYLAN THOMAS - BOATHOUSE AND TOURING SITES
