All Saints' Church, Llangar

All Saints' Old Parish Church
All Saints' Old Parish Church
Type	Church
Location	Llangar, Cynwyd, Denbighshire
Coordinates	52°58′16″N3°23′45″W / 52.9712°N 3.3959°W
Built	15th century
Rebuilt	18th century
Restored	1974
Restored by	R. Shoesmith
Governing body	Cadw
Listed Building – Grade I
Official name	Church of All Saints, Cynwyd
Designated	1966
Reference no.	704
Scheduled monument
Official name	Llangar Old Parish Church & Churchyard
Reference no.	ME093
	Location of All Saints' Old Parish Church in Denbighshire

Last updated November 02, 2024

Llangar Church, or All Saints Old Parish Church, Llangar, was formerly the parish church of Llangar with Cynwyd, in the Dee Valley, Denbighshire, North Wales. It is now under the guardianship of Cadw, is a Scheduled Monument, and a grade I Listed Building. It is conserved and open to the public as an example of a rural church with medieval wall paintings and largely intact 18th century interior fittings.

History

Documentary sources show a church at Llangar in 1291,^[2] but the present building would appear to date to the 15th century (1971 excavations within the church found this to be the earliest identifiable occupancy).^[3] The Church has an undivided nave and chancel, flagstone floor, and arch-braced roof with 15th century roof trusses.^[1] The walls have wall paintings, which probably represent at least 8 different layers of painted schemes. The earliest of these date to the 15th century.^[2] The extensive woodwork of the interior includes a gallery, box pews, benches and pulpit, all of which date to the early part of the 18th century.

By 1682 the parish was two identifiable townships of Llangar and Cymmer. By 1856 the majority of the population were living even further up that valley, at Cynwyd, and with the church now distant and in poor repair the decision was made to build a new Church, the Church of St John Evangelist, Cynwyd, and abandon the old Church at Llangar, which thus avoided the renovations of the 19th century. The church is now under the guardianship of Cadw, having become very dilapidated in its abandoned state. A major conservation programme was undertaken from 1974.

Roof timbers

The oldest roof trusses are four arch-braced roof trusses forming the four bays in the centre of the Church. At the west end, above the gallery, further trusses were altered in the 17th or 18th century and are divided by a collar-beam truss.^[1] At the chancel end the roof is panelled over with a barrel shaped ceiling to provide a 'canopy of honour' of 15th century design, although most of the fabric of this is now of later date.^[1]

Internal woodwork

The interior of the Church has an extensive range of early eighteenth century wooden fittings,^[3] which, because of the subsequent abandonment of the Church, has survived in a largely unaltered state where nineteenth century improvers would have swept them away. There is a large gallery at the west end, accessed by a stone spiral staircase.^[1] The gallery has wooden bench seating for a choir, and an enclosed area and a pyramidal music stand.^[1] The main body of the Church has box pews, some facing east, others, alongside the pulpit, face south toward the pulpit, indicating the liturgical emphasis toward the pulpit, where the sermons are delivered, rather than the altar, where the mass is celebrated.^[3] The pulpit itself is positioned part-way down the south wall,^[3] and is a wood-panelled triple combination of pulpit, reading desk and clerk's desk, which is re-worked from 17th century items.^[1]

Wall paintings

The north and south walls of the Church hold the fragmentary remains of possibly 8 different layers of wall painting, dating in age from the 15th to 18th centuries.^[1] The principle pre-reformation schemes were painted as sequences of paintings running for much of the length of the wall. On the north wall this takes the form of a series of rustic frames, evoking an idea of a wooden framework, which would have held a series of pictures, possibly depicting the passion, although the images within the frames are hard to decipher.^[4] Also on the north wall, overlaying some of the rustic frames, is a pre-reformation painting of an unknown Bishop, occupying an elaborate 'fictive architectural niche'.^[1]

The south wall is divided into two rows of seven rectangular 'boxes'. In the upper row it appears there were images of personifications of the seven deadly sins, and in the row below a matching series of seven corporal works of mercy. This was a comparatively common theme in late medieval wall paintings,^[5] In the Llangar paintings, each of the seven deadly sins appear to be represented through a person riding on the back of an animal. There are only three churches in Britain which use this device, the others being Hardwick, Cambridgeshire ^[6] and at Imber, Wiltshire.^[7] As with many medieval wall paintings, large areas of the Llangar paintings have been lost or obscured. In several of the scenes the rider's hats are still visible, and the animals can still be seen, but the details of the riders are unclear, perhaps defaced.

The other paintings, found on various places around the Church, are mainly post-reformation works, painted after the now-unacceptable medieval images had been covered over. Most prominent, and most recent, is a large skeleton figure of Death, painted in the 18th century, serving as a reminder of mortality.^[1] The classical arch frame on the north wall had the text of Gweddi'r Arglwydd, the Lord's Prayer in Welsh. The various texts painted on the walls embody a shift from images to words after the Reformation, which matches the shift in focus of the internal layout from the altar to the pulpit.^[8]

There are no paintings on either of the two end walls, as both of these experienced structural problems and were rebuilt around 1615–1620, when the south porch was also added, and the west wall has been rebuilt twice since then.^[9] This paintings on the two long walls demonstrate that these have remained intact since the time of the earliest of the paintings. They also now show the problem of dealing with multiple painted schemes on the same area of wall. The paintings were conserved in 1991, revealing multiple images from various time periods,^[3] and decisions will have been made about when to leave some paint in place, and when to reveal older paintings at the expense of those on top.

Cadw Guardianship

Llangar Church is a 'Guardianship monument',^[2] meaning that responsibility for the Church building is now in the hands of Cadw, having been formerly part of St Asaph Diocese of the Church in Wales. There remains a facility for two services a year to be held within the Church.^[10] Responsibility for Llangar passed to the Secretary of State for Wales (Cadw's predecessor) in 1967.,^[9] and a project to investigate and conserve the Church was begun in 1974. Archaeological excavations under the stone floor, led by Ron Shoesmith, found no evidence dating back before the 14th century.^[9] The building was stabilised, made weatherproof, and in 1991 a scheme of work to reveal and conserve the wall paintings was completed. The building is accessible to visitors by arrangement with the Cadw staff based at Rug Chapel.^[11]

Publications

Yates, W N, (1993) Guide to Rug Chapel, Llangar Church and Gwydir Uchaf Chapel, Cadw: Welsh Historic Monuments, ISBN 0-948329-86-6
Shoesmith, R, (1980), Llangar Church, Archaeologia Cambrensis : 129 : 64–132

Related Research Articles

Borgund Stave Church is a former parish church initially of the Catholic Church and later the Church of Norway in Lærdal Municipality in Vestland county, Norway. It was built around the year 1200 as the village church of Borgund, and belonged to Lærdal parish until 1868, when its religious functions were transferred to a "new" Borgund Church, which was built nearby. The old church was restored, conserved and turned into a museum. It is funded and run by the Society for the Preservation of Ancient Norwegian Monuments, and is classified as a triple-nave stave church of the Sogn-type. Its grounds contain Norway's sole surviving stave-built free-standing bell tower.

St Mary's Church, Tal-y-llyn is a medieval church near Aberffraw in Anglesey, north Wales. It was originally a chapel of ease for the parish church of St Peulan's, Llanbeulan, but the township that it once served, Tal-y-llyn, no longer exists. It was declared a redundant church in the early 1990s, and has been in the care of the Friends of Friendless Churches since 1999. Services are held once per month during part of the year.

St Cwyllog's Church, Llangwyllog, is a medieval church near Llangwyllog, in Anglesey, North Wales. St Cwyllog founded a church here in the 6th century, although the exact date is unknown. The existence of a church here was recorded in 1254 and parts of the present building may date from around 1200. Other sections are from the 15th century, with an unusual annex. added in the 16th century. The church contains some 18th-century fittings, including a rare Georgian three-decker pulpit and reading desk.

St Mary's Church, Derwen, is a redundant church in the centre of the village of Derwen, Denbighshire, Wales. It is designated by Cadw as a Grade I listed building, and is under the care of the Friends of Friendless Churches. The churchyard contains Derwen Cross, an important medieval sculpture, which is listed at Grade II* and a Scheduled Ancient Monument.

St Ellyw's Church, is a redundant church in the village of Llanelieu, Powys, Wales. It is designated by Cadw as a Grade I listed building, and is under the care of the Friends of Friendless Churches. It is sited at the edge of the Black Mountains within the Brecon Beacons National Park.

St Mary's Church, Penllech, is a redundant church in the village of Penllech, Gwynedd, Wales. It is designated by Cadw as a Grade II* listed building, and is under the care of the Friends of Friendless Churches. It stands adjacent to a farmyard in the Lleyn Peninsula and is on the old pilgrims' route to Bardsey Island.

Plas Uchaf is a 15th-century cruck-and-aisle-truss hall house, 1.5 miles (2.4 km) south-west of Corwen, Denbighshire, Wales and 1 mile (1.6 km) north of Cynwyd. Its excellent workmanship indicates a house originally of considerable importance; it has been described as "of palatial significance".

St Mary's Church, Rhodogeidio is a small medieval church, dating from the 15th century, near Llannerch-y-medd, in Anglesey, north Wales. It served as a chapel of ease to another church in the area, St Ceidio's. Some restoration work was carried out in the 19th century, but St Mary's has since fallen into disuse and is now largely in ruins.

St Ceidio's Church, Rhodogeidio is a rural 19th-century church near Llannerch-y-medd, in Anglesey, north Wales. It was built using materials from the 14th-century church that previously stood on the site, which has been used for Christian worship since some time in the 7th century. The present building, which contains an east window dating from the 14th century and a 15th-century font, is no longer used for services, but has been looked after by local people.

St Tyfrydog's Church, Llandyfrydog is a small medieval church, in Llandyfrydog, Anglesey, north Wales. The date of establishment of a church on this site is unknown, but one 19th-century Anglesey historian says that it was about 450. The oldest parts of the present building are dated to about 1400, with the chancel dating from the late 15th or early 16th century. It is built from rough, small, squared stones, dressed with limestone. One of the windows on the south side is raised to illuminate the pulpit, a decision that in the eyes of one 19th-century commentator "disfigures the building."

St Twrog's Church is a small rural church at Bodwrog in Anglesey, North Wales. Built in the late 15th century in a medieval style, some alterations have been made but much of the original structure still remains. It has two 15th-century doorways and some 15th-century windows. The bull's head decoration used on the church denotes a connection with the Bulkeleys of Beaumaris, a prominent north Wales family over several centuries. Set in a remote part of the countryside in the middle of Anglesey, it is dedicated to St Twrog, who was active in the late 5th and early 6th centuries. The church's tithes were paid for at least two hundred years to Jesus College, Oxford, which has historically strong links with Wales, and the college at one point built a house for the priest who served St Twrog's and a neighbouring parish.

The Old Church of St Gwenllwyfo, Llanwenllwyfo is a medieval ruined church near Dulas, in Anglesey, Wales, perhaps built in the 15th century to replace another church from which only the 12th-century font survived. Dedicated to Gwenllwyfo, a 7th-century female saint about whom nothing else is known, it was used as a chapel of ease for the church in Amlwch, about 5 miles (8 km) away. Restored in 1610 and again in the 18th and 19th centuries, it contained an oak screen and pulpit from 1610.

St Eugrad's Church, Llaneugrad is an isolated church near the village of Marian-glas, in Anglesey, north Wales. A church was supposedly founded here by St Eugrad in about 605, although the earliest parts of the present structure are the nave, chancel and chancel arch, which date from the 12th century. A side chapel was added to the north in the 16th century, and some moderate restoration work was carried out in the 19th century. It contains a 12th-century font, a 13th-century carved stone depicting the crucifixion, and a memorial to one of the officers killed when the Royal Charter sank off Anglesey in 1859.

Leicester's Church, originally known as St David's Church, Denbigh, is a large ruined church near to the hill top castle at Denbigh, North Wales. It was built for Robert Dudley, 1st Earl of Leicester, from 1578, but financial difficulties meant work stopped in 1584. When the Earl died unexpectedly in 1588 the project was abandoned. It had been the only large church-building project in Elizabethan England or Wales. On Robert Dudley's death with no heir, his estates reverted to the Crown, as a roofless enclosed space. It is now a Grade I listed building and Scheduled Ancient Monument, cared for by Cadw, the Welsh historic environment service.

The Church of St Cybi, Llangybi, Monmouthshire is a parish church with its origins in the 13th or 14th century. Refurbished in the 15th century, the church was restored in 1909–10. The interior has a notable collection of medieval wall paintings, in particular a Christ of the Trades, dating from c.1460. The church is an active parish church and part of the recently-formed Heart of Monmouthshire Ministry Area. It is a Grade II* listed building and the architectural writer John Newman, recording the church in the Buildings of Wales series, described it as "one of the most interesting in the Usk Valley."

St Dyfnog's Church is a small church in the village of Llanrhaeadr-yng-Nghinmeirch (Llanrhaeadr) in Denbighshire, Wales. The church stands on the western edge of the Llanrhaeadr Hall estate, and its setting was developed by the estate in the 18th and 19th centuries as The Dingle. The eyecatcher at its western end is St Dyfnog's Well. Associated with the 6th century Welsh saint, Saint Dyfnog, to whom the church is dedicated, it became an important holy well pilgrimage site in the 17th century. The church dates from the 13th century, although with much rebuilding in the 15th and 16th. It contains an important Tree of Jesse stained glass window which has been described as "some of the finest glass in Wales". St Dyfnog's remains an active church in the Diocese of St Asaph and is a Grade I listed building.

St Cewydd's Church is an active parish church in the village of Disserth, Powys, Wales. The dispersed village of Disserth lies south of Llandrindod Wells and north of Builth Wells. The church stands in an isolated position on a bank of the River Ithon. Unrestored in the Victorian era, the church has an unusually complete 18th century interior. Medieval in origin, St Cewydd's is designated by Cadw as a Grade I listed building.

St Meugan's Church was the original parish church of Ruthin, in Denbighshire, Wales. Located about 1.5 km east of the centre of the town, the church is dedicated to Saint Meugan, a Welsh saint of the 5th/6th centuries. Although with earlier origins, the present church dates to the 13th century, with additions and enlargements in the following two centuries. St Meugan's was later superseded as the parish church of the town by the more centrally-located St Peter's Church. It remains an active church in the Diocese of St Asaph and is a Grade I listed building.

St Cynhafal's Church is a small, isolated church east of the scattered village of Llangynhafal in Denbighshire, Wales. Its only immediate neighbour is the former rectory, Plas-yn-llan, birthplace of the Rev. Robert Jones, friend of William Wordsworth and where Wordsworth stayed in the 1790s. The church is dedicated to Saint Cynhafal, a 7th-century monk, and is the only such dedication in the United Kingdom. Although with earlier origins, the present church dates to the 13th century, and was largely rebuilt in the 15th. It remains an active church in the Diocese of St Asaph and is a Grade I listed building.

References

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 britishlistedbuildings.co.uk Church of All Saints, Cynwyd
1 2 3 All Saints' Church, Llangar (ID NPRN93771) . at the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Wales (RCAHMW)
1 2 3 4 5 Llangar Church (All Saints) (ID PRN100815) . in the ' SMR ' for Clwyd Powys Archaeological Trust (CPAT)
↑ Rosewell, Roger (2008) Medieval Wall Paintings, Boydell, ISBN 9780747812937, p.303-4
↑ The Seven Deadly Sins and Seven Corporal Works of Mercy: Introduction to a Church Wall Paintings Database University of Leicester Department of the History of Art and Film. Accessed 17 April 2016
↑ St Mary's, Hardwick: Interpretation of the Murals Accessed 17 April 2016
↑ Churches Conservation Trust: Our Wall Paintings – St Giles, Imber Archived 2016-04-20 at the Wayback Machine .
↑ Rosewell, 2008, p.30
1 2 3 Historic Settlement Survey – Denbighshire – 2014 : Llangar, CPAT. accessed 19 April 2016
↑ Cynwyd 150 Anniversary, Parish of Llangar History at churchinwales.org.uk
↑ cadw.gov.wales Llangar Old Parish Church

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.

[blb-1] 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 britishlistedbuildings.co.uk Church of All Saints, Cynwyd

[coflein-2] 1 2 3 All Saints' Church, Llangar (ID NPRN93771) . at the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Wales (RCAHMW)

[CPAT-3] 1 2 3 4 5 Llangar Church (All Saints) (ID PRN100815) . in the ' SMR ' for Clwyd Powys Archaeological Trust (CPAT)

[rosewell-4] Rosewell, Roger (2008) Medieval Wall Paintings, Boydell, ISBN 9780747812937, p.303-4

[5] The Seven Deadly Sins and Seven Corporal Works of Mercy: Introduction to a Church Wall Paintings Database University of Leicester Department of the History of Art and Film. Accessed 17 April 2016

[6] St Mary's, Hardwick: Interpretation of the Murals Accessed 17 April 2016

[7] Churches Conservation Trust: Our Wall Paintings – St Giles, Imber Archived 2016-04-20 at the Wayback Machine .

[8] Rosewell, 2008, p.30

[pdf-9] 1 2 3 Historic Settlement Survey – Denbighshire – 2014 : Llangar, CPAT. accessed 19 April 2016

[10] Cynwyd 150 Anniversary, Parish of Llangar History at churchinwales.org.uk

[11] w.gov.wales Llangar Old Parish Church

[1]

[2]

[3]

[4]

[5]

[6]

[7]

[8]

[9]

[10]

[11]