Friends of Friendless Churches

But, just over a century later, St Peter's, Llancillo once again faced the prospect of closure.

However, this time, dereliction wasn’t on the cards because, in 2007, we took this remote gem of a church into our care.

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Thankfully, Godsell’s restoration was done with a light touch, preserving much of the medieval fabric, the precious 17th-century pulpit, and the 18th-century memorials that hang on the bare stone walls of this isolated church.

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However, against the advice of the local bishop, Revd Robert Whinerey, set up a restoration fund and St Peter’s was successfully restored by architect G.H. Godsell in 1896.

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In the late Victorian period, this Norman church, built in the late 11th and early 12th century, had become almost entirely derelict.

The south wall of the church had collapsed and sheep wandered freely around the nave.

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📷 The interior in the late 19th century

This is St Peter's, Llancillo in Herefordshire. It sits on the Anglo-Welsh border deep in the Black Mountains and is only accessible by foot - being more than a mile from the nearest road.

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In the late 19th century, this secluded and difficult to reach medieval church had fallen into a state of disrepair and the local bishop suggested that it be closed - left to be reclaimed by nature.

However, this quaint little church has endured against all the odds.

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His last words to his followers were: ‘Be joyful, keep the faith, and do the little things that you have heard and seen me do.’ His legacy lives on through the phrase ‘Gwnewch y pethau bychain mewn bywyd’ - ‘Do the little things in life’.

📷 St Mary's, Derwen, Denbighshire

Dewi Sant (St David) died on March 1st 589 AD. He was a renowned preacher, who established monasteries and churches in Wales, Brittany, and England.

📷 St Mark's, Brithdir, Gwynedd

Daffodils tend to bloom in early March and the fact they are prettier than leeks likely aided their swift rise to prominence as a national emblem for Wales in the 19th century.

📷 St Doged's, Llanddoged, Conwy

The daffodil is the national flower of Wales and its Welsh name is cenhinen Bedr, which literally translates as ‘Peter’s leek’. Leeks have been a symbol of Wales since the medieval period.

📷 St David's, Llangeview (Llangyfiw), Monmouthshire
1/2 © Lily Watts

Dydd Gŵyl Dewi Hapus! Happy St David’s Day!

In celebration of the feast day of the patron saint of Wales, please enjoy these photos of daffodils outside and inside some of our churches in Wales.

📷 St Mary's, Penllech, Gwynedd

Thank you. As always we are grateful to the members and donors, who made this possible!

This pulled the roof back into a shape close to its original medieval form — a form it hadn’t known for centuries. Believe it or not, the roof is now 2ft higher than it was before the repairs.

📷 Interior after repairs © Lily Watts

After 3 months of squeezing, jacking, sawing, splicing and plenty of replacement, Jones & Fraser had the trusses close enough to transfer the weight of the roof back to where it was originally intended.

🎥 Time-lapse of the roof being brought back into shape

Thus, stainless steel plates were bolted onto the trusses to increase their capacity to carry the weight of the stone tiles. Also, any timbers that could be salvaged were repaired using traditional joinery techniques.

📷 Roof structure, with steel plates, during repairs © Lily Watts

Accordingly, after 300 years of overloading, the principle rafters had become hugely deflected — to the note of 200mm along their length — or in some cases had cracked completely.

📷 Snapped truss before repairs

Composed of 29 carved arched braced trusses, the roof structure was initially designed to take the weight of a thatched roof, not 300 years of a 32 ton diminishing stone tile roof.

📷 Exterior before repairs

On the advice of Andrew Faulkner, emergency propping was introduced to support the timber wall plate on the north side of the nave — which, at that point, had just 20mm of bearing on the stone wall below.

📷 Props before repairs
1/2 - © Lily Watts

When our Director, Rachel Morley, first visited St James’s in March 2019, she noticed that there were clearly structural issues with the church’s magnificent medieval wagon roofs.

📷 Wagon roof before repairs

Sagging, deflected, and perilously close to collapse, the roof of St James’s, Llangua was in a dire state before our repair project. Now, thanks to the tireless efforts of Jones & Fraser, the roof has been brought back to a condition much closer to its original medieval form.

We are lucky enough to care for some of the finest examples, in particularly, St Mark’s, Brithdir, Gwynedd and St Mary’s, Llanfair Kilgeddin, Monmouthshire.

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Nevertheless, from the rural hills of North Wales to the busy streets of London, there are countless Arts and Crafts churches and chapels waiting to be explore.

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📷 St John the Baptist's, Matlock Dale, Derbyshire © Alec Hamilton

Instead, what we call ‘Arts and Crafts’ was a merely a memorable name for publicising the first exhibition in 1888 by the Arts and Crafts Exhibition Society.

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However, although there is an alignment of artistic sentiments and design instinctive among the various practitioners, there was no strict and clear ideology for the Arts and Crafts style.

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For instance, the ethereal stained glass windows were produced by Louis Davies and George Bankart did the rich plasterwork on the ceiling.

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To create this varied yet generally harmonistic chapel, Dawber enlisted some of the finest Arts and Crafts practitioners.

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Through its architecture and fittings, this chapel exemplifies the sophisticated simplicity at the heart of the Arts and Crafts style.

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This Derbyshire chapel was designed by Guy Dawber, who would later become President of RIBA in 1925. Other than a crematorium chapel in Enfield, this is the only religious building that he designed.

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St John the Baptist's, Matlock Dale was built in the late 1890s in the Arts and Crafts style for Louisa Sophia Harris (née Leacroft) in memory of her uncle and aunt.

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Arts and Crafts was a “movement” in architecture and design that was popular in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

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📷 © Oscar Proctor