Sarn MeyllyeyrnThe earliest evidence of religious experience in the Llyn landscape must be sought in the monuments of the Neolithic period and Early Bronze Age. There are around fifteen standing stones in the study area. There is a cluster near the banks of the river Erch, two stones, 180 m apart at Pen Prys, Llannor and a dispersed distribution extending to the south-western tip of the peninsula. It is impossible to determine the function of these stones. Some may be outliers or signposts to more extensive complexes of ritual activity, no longer visible. Others may be associated with burial. Most are an evocative expression of historical depth in the landscape. There are no certain stone circles or circular embanked ‘henge monuments’ in the area, although it has been suggested that a circular ditched enclosure, discovered from the air as a cropmark and confirmed by geophysical survey, at Cwmistir between Edern and Tudweiliog, might be an early prehistoric ritual enclosure.
Sarn Meyllyeyrn
There are ten chambered tombs of the Neolithic period which have been recorded in the landscape area, although not all have survived. There is a tomb at Cromlech Farm, Four Crosses, again near the Erch and at Pont Pensarn, close to the confluence of rivers which come together at the Pool, Pwllheli. There are tombs on the Cilan headland and, importantly, on the eastern slopes of Mynydd Rhiw, below the important source of fine grained rock used in the manufacture of Neolithic axe-making. Although places where burials were made, and described as tombs, these monuments are best considered as focal points of religious expression where death was recognised as part of the life cycle, an important consideration for agriculturalists. The burials of later centuries are closed monuments and more obviously graves.
The earliest Christian churches on the Llyn peninsula are very difficult to identify and difficult to interpret, as is the case with many aspects of the Early Middle Ages, in the absence of direct evidence. The character of early churches and their organisation may, in many cases, be described as quasi-monastic or ‘clas’ churches. They were not yet part of a parochial system but were operated on community lines. The clas (a later term) describes a very wide range and type of church from the important and influential communities of Aberdaron and Clynnog Fawr and its offshoots within Llyn, to small churches run by a local community with no other influence or interest outside its township boundaries. As an example, a clas church could come into existence if the freeholding head of a kindred, with the consent of its heirs and the sanction of the king or lord, transferred its rights in the land of the community to the benefit of a church, by making it and maintaining it. The customary rents and dues owed to the king or lord would then be transferred to the maintenance of the church. One of the community would have to be a priest and the head of the family, cleric or not, would be styled ‘Abbot’. Another scenario might involve the king or lord granting land for the construction and maintenance of a church and, perhaps, the installation of a younger member of the family or relative to hold that church. In either case, the church, and its community, would be freed from royal taxes. Certain appurtenances and rights accrued. The community, the claswyr (the ‘monks’), had a vested and inheritable interest in the landed endowments of the church, the abadaeth. An area of sanctuary (the noddfa) extended from the church and provided protection for those who required it. In one documented instance, in 1114, Gruffydd ap Rhys ap Twedwr of Deheubarth, pursued by Gruffudd ap Cynan’s men, took sanctuary in the church of Aberdaron. Gruffudd’s men were sent to drag him out but Aberdaron stood firm and ‘did not allow the sanctuary of the church to be violated’ (Brut y Tywysogion, Peniarth MS, 20 sa.1112).
Two important sixth-century memorial stones, found at Anelog, near Aberdaron, bear inscriptions which identify ‘Senacus, the priest, who lies here with a multitude of his brethren’; and ‘Veracius, the priest, here he lies’. The inscriptions use Roman capitals with serifs, ligatures and contraction marks in the style of grave markers to be found in many towns of the late Roman Western Provinces, indicating, at least, a familiarity with certain aspects of contemporary continental Christianity.
The early churches of Llyn were almost certainly of wooden construction. The earliest surviving structural evidence of the use of stone is of the twelfth century. Aberdaron, with its twelfth-century Romanesque arched door, in three orders, is the best example, albeit much added-to and altered over the centuries. Those churches where a clas association can be identified have significant potential for there to have been an earlier church in that location.
Aberdaron
During the late twelfth and early thirteenth centuries there was a movement of reform which considered the old clas churches to be in decay and outmoded in respect of the continental orders which were making headway across England and Wales. Many of the clas communities were encouraged or persuaded to relinquish their rights in the abadaeth in favour of communities of Augustinian canons. Augustinians were chosen because the flexibility of their rule allowed them to undertake parochial responsibilities, as did the priests among the claswyr. Other clas communities seemed almost to melt away, leaving the church in the hand of a rector within a diocesan structure. In practice, concessions were made both to the claswyr and to the new occupants of the church. Again, Aberdaron provides the clearest example on Llyn. The claswyr of Aberdaron retained their personal and property rights, their bond tenants were enfranchised and additional royal land on the mainland was granted by Dafydd ap Gruffydd, Lord of Cymymaen.
A second and important example refers to a grant of the church of Nefyn by Cadwaladr ap Gruffudd ap Cynan, in the 1170s or thereabout, to the Augustinian abbey of Haughmond. There are certain indications which suggest that the church was originally a clas church, raising the possibility that the establishment of Nefyn as a commotal maerdref had not occurred before the grant to Haughmond.
Between the twelfth and early sixteenth centuries stone-built churches became a very significant and visual component of the medieval landscape. There were considerations of a tenurial nature to take account of too. The township of Llannnor with its five dispersed hamlets was in the tenure of St. Beuno, that is to say, Clynnog Fawr. Carnguwch had also come within the orbit of Clynnog.
The Bishop of Bangor’s interests across Gwynedd were extensive. In the cantref of Llyn the Bishop maintained a manor house and demesne lands at Edern. He was also landlord of the townships of Llaniestyn, Abererch, Llangwnnadl, Penrhos, Llanbedrog and Edern itself.
Surviving twelfth century detail is clearly visible at Aberdaron and also at Pistyll. The earliest visible masonry at Llannor is of the thirteenth century, which encompasses the entire unicameral structure before the addition of a fifteenth-century tower and modern porch and chapel. In its time it must have been the largest church in Llyn. Llangian also has thirteenth-century work at the west end with a very clear distinction between that phase and a fifteenth-century extension. Similarly, Llaniestyn has surviving thirteenth-century masonry at the west end which was extended eastward in the late thirteenth century.
Perhaps the most expansive phase, however, centred on the year 1500. Llaniestyn, Llanengan, Abererch and Aberdaron churches all built new aisles adjacent to the previously extended structures and introduced arcades of four-centred arches between for communication. Llangwnnadl, on a much earlier structure, built two additional aisles, north and south of the early nave in the 1520s and 1530s punctuated the walls with three, four-centred, arches.
Llangwnnadl
The style in these late fifteenth- and early sixteenth-century churches is predominantly perpendicular, with the exception of Llaniestyn which retains a version of an earlier, triple-lancet window, style at both east gables. At this same period, similar styles of roofing were employed using collar-beam, arch-braced, trusses, sometimes strengthened with wind-braces and raking struts. Good examples, some repaired or restored, may be seen at Llangian, Llanengan, Pistyll and Llangwnnadl.
Llandudwen is an interesting sixteenth- and seventeenth-century rebuild on medieval foundations, incorporating square stone-mullioned windows with ovolo moulding.
Fourteen of the twenty-eight parish churches in the study area have either been demolished and left as ruins or rebuilt on the same site during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The church at Deneio, close to the assumed llys of the maerdref of Afloegion has been reduced to a stable ruin of low walls.
A new church was built on a new site in the centre of Pwllheli in the nineteenth century and it was rebuilt again in 1887. St Peter ad Vincula at Meyllteyrn was rebuilt on the same site but it, too, is now a ruin. Many of the nineteenth-century churches which have replaced earlier ones are solid Victorian conceptions of diverse medieval themes as, for example, at Edern and Tudweiliog. Two unusual churches in this category are the rusticated Romanesque church built to replace the St. Hywyn’s original Romanesque at Aberdaron and St. Gwninin’s church at Llandygwnning.
The rise of religious Non-Conformism in the later eighteenth-century was fuelled by eloquence and enthusiasm. Among those evangelists who fired up the mass rallies was John Elias, a son of Abererch. The smaller meetings which followed these rallies, held within individual communities, required accommodation of some kind. Lofts and barns were let, or given freely for the purpose. As the movement and momentum increased within communities which had outgrown their rented rooms, steps were taken to acquire more spacious and suitable buildings. One of the earliest chapels to have been used,and which still survives, is Capel Newydd, Nanhoron. Capel Newydd is barn-like and may very well have been a barn before its use as a chapel. Acquiring land for a dissenters’ chapel was not always easy and the gentry were not always well disposed to Non-Conformists. However, the Puritan background of the Nanhoron family was a legacy which endured. Captain Timothy Edwards of Nanhoron was a benefactor and his wife, Catherine, joined the congregation after her husband’s death. Capel Newydd (Independent) stood close to the edge of common land, and, in 1782, a second chapel of Calvinistic Methodists was built within the common at Nant, a short distance away.
Capel Newydd, Nanhoron
An Independent Chapel was built at Tudweiliog in the late 1820s a short distance down the lane to Brynodol and not far from the parish church. The style here is also very like a barn or agricultural building and has a house for the minister, adjacent and in-line.
During the second quarter of the nineteenth century Non-Conformist chapels were built more spaciously to accommodate larger congregations. In a small village like Aberdaron there were three chapels, Independent, Calvinistic Methodist and Wesleyan before 1890. Chapels, by this period, were designed and the designs which found favour were predominantly classical. Victorian Gothic designs were less popular but do occur. Capel Nebo, at Rhiw, for example, rebuilt in 1876 has a restrained, but nevertheless Gothic facade as does Capel Peniel at Ceidio, immediately adjacent to the restored church there. Those churches with classical elements in their design present recurring motifs, with some variation, and a generally standard arrangement of openings, at least until the end of the century when chapels grew larger still and the designs more adventurous. Common elements of the second half of the nineteenth century include large half-round arches springing from abaci upon tall pilasters occupying a good portion of the gable façade. The arch frames two tall windows with rounded heads, above which are set a kind of pseudo-hood mould. Two paired doors with rounded heads stand outside the frame on either side of the facade. This arrangement and others recur several times and are probably the work of local architects. The round arched theme described above is replicated precisely, for example at Capel Berea, Efail Newydd, in 1872, Bethania at Pistyll in 1875, Bryn Mawr in 1877 and Salem, Sarn Meyllteyrn 1879.
Bethania, Pistyll
In respect of the larger chapels of the turn of the century, at Edern in 1898 we see a tall porch, with pediment, projecting slightly from the rectangular face of the body of the chapel, carry three round-headed windows at the first floor gallery level and a round-headed door flanked by windows on the ground floor, all within an arched recess. Two windows up and two windows down flank each side of the porch. At Llithfaen, which also has a gallery we find a variation on the same theme on a smaller scale. Both chapels employ a style of classical rustication, or the semblance of it, to imply a utilitarian function to otherwise impressive buildings.
Edern