St Melangell's Church (Welsh: [mɛˈlaŋgɛɬ]) is a Grade I listed medieval building of the Church in Wales located in the former village of Pennant Melangell, in the Tanat Valley, Powys, Wales. The church was founded around the 8th century to commemorate the reputed grave of Melangell, a hermit and abbess who founded a convent and sanctuary in the area. The current church was built in the 12th century and the oldest documentation of it dates to the 13th century. The building has been renovated several times, including major restoration work in the 19th and 20th centuries. In the 1980s the church was in danger of demolition, but under new leadership it was renovated and a cancer ministry was started. In 1958, and again between 1987 and 1994, the site was subject to major archaeological excavations, which uncovered information about prehistoric and medieval activity at Pennant Melangell, including evidence of Bronze Age burials.
St Melangell's Church contains the reconstructed shrine to Melangell, considered the oldest surviving Romanesque shrine in northern Europe. The shrine dates to the 12th century, and was a major centre of cult activity in Wales until the Reformation. It was dismantled at some point, probably in the early modern era, and reconstructed in 1958 out of fragments found in and around the church. In 1989 the shrine was dismantled again and restored in 1991 according to newer scholarship. Pennant Melangell has continued to attract pilgrims of various backgrounds and motivations into the 21st century.
The church is built of several types of stone and has a single nave and a square tower. On the east end is an apse, known as the cell-y-bedd, which contains Melangell's traditional grave. The interior of the church holds historically valuable objects including a 15th-century rood screen depicting Melangell's legend, two 14th-century effigies, paintings, and liturgical fittings. The churchyard contains thousands of graves—the majority unmarked—and several yew trees.
Location and surroundings
Pennant Melangell is located in the Tanat Valley, near the Berwyn Mountains, in the community of Llangynog. The church is only accessible by a narrow road from Llangynog, following the course of the Afon Tanat, making it more isolated than many other popular pilgrimage churches.
As of 1994, the land surrounding the church was privately owned, but from the 18th century until 1886 it was held by the church's rectors and vicars as glebe farmland, which supported their livelihoods. Remains of structures including sheepfolds, enclosures, shelters, huts, and peat-drying platforms suggest that the land was used for summer grazing and peat-cutting.
Other historic sites nearby include a late-medieval farmstead, the remains of the medieval village surrounding the church, and a natural rock shelf known as Gwely Melangell (Melangell's Bed). At some unknown date, probably in the 19th century, the words "St Monacella's Bed" were carved into the stone. Around a kilometre north of the church is a holy well known as Ffynnon Cwm Ewyn or Ffynnon Iewyn, traditionally thought to cure rheumatism, scrofula, and skin diseases.
History
The site of St Melangell's Church held spiritual significance as far back as the Bronze Age, and was probably turned into a Christian site in the early medieval period. Archaeological evidence of cremation pyres suggests that there was a burial mound at Pennant in the Bronze Age, possibly under the church itself. Bronze Age pottery and early medieval burial activity has also been discovered, indicating the site's use as a burial ground until the construction of the church.
Medieval period
According to her hagiography Historia Divae Monacellae, Melangell sought refuge at Pennant after fleeing an arranged marriage in her native Ireland. She spent 15 years in solitude without seeing a man, until being discovered by a prince named Brochwel. The prince, pursuing a hare with his dogs, encountered Melangell praying with the hare safe under her hem. Brochwel granted her the land with perpetual sanctuary rights for anyone fleeing to Pennant, and Melangell went on to found a community of nuns.
Pennant Melangell was probably founded in the late 8th century, and references to abbots in Melangell's hagiography indicate that a male monastic community was later founded at the site. Neither the male nor female monasteries remained by the 13th century, when the first documentation of the church appears. Historically, locals of the area refused to kill hares due to their association with Melangell. According to the archaeologist Caroline Malim, the veneration of hares at Pennant probably has origins in pre-Christian Celtic religion.
Under Norman rule in the 11th and 12th centuries, the Welsh Church was reformed. Saints' cults were revived and Normanised, including that of Melangell. Before the construction of the current church, no definitive evidence exists for one existing at the site, and no pre-Norman buildings survive in Wales. A stretch of possible wall footing indicates that there may have been a timber church built no earlier than the 11th century, which was then replaced. The current stone church was built in the 12th century, probably over an earlier medieval graveyard, which in turn was built over a Bronze Age burial mound. The shrine to Melangell also dates to the 12th century, and was probably locally crafted under Norman influence. According to the historian Kathryn Hurlock, the shrine was erected around 1160–1170 to house Melangell's translated remains, and the 12th-century apse enclosed her original grave.
According to Malcolm Thurlby, the church was constructed "[no] later than the third quarter of the twelfth century", very probably by the lord of the area, Rhirid Flaidd. This would have coincided with the great ecclesiastical patronage of his liege, the king of Powys, Madog ap Maredudd. The first written records of the Pennant church appear in the Valuation of Norwich of 1254, in which the church property is valued slightly below average for the Diocese of St Asaph. In 1291, however, the church was one of the more valuable churches in the diocese, probably owing to a rise in popularity of Melangell's cult. By the 15th century, the poet Guto'r Glyn records that pilgrims were known to visit the shrine of Melangell for a cure to their ailments. The entire roof was probably replaced in the 15th century, and the current rood screen was added. An aisle on the south side of the chancel may have been added to aid pilgrims' access to the shrine in the late medieval period.
Melangell's cult remained popular until the Reformation; in 1535 the income from offerings at the shrine was comparable to that of other major cult centres in Wales. In the summer of 1535, Henry VIII sent preachers and officials to the Diocese of St Asaph to promote reform. The religious reforms under Henry VIII, Edward VI, and Elizabeth I, which suppressed pilgrimage and saints' cults, brought major changes to the fabric of the church; the shrine was probably dismantled at this time and the grave chapel blocked off. Portions of the shrine were incorporated into the walls of the church and the lychgate, which was built in the 17th century. By the 1660s the value of the Pennant church had once again sunk to below average for the diocese. The walls were plastered and seating was introduced into the church at some point from the late 16th century.
Significant repairs and renovations were undertaken throughout the 18th century, including blocking up doors and windows, building a new porch, replacing walls, and possibly dismantling the loft of the rood screen. The old cell-y-bedd was also built at this time, replacing the medieval apse and grave chapel. It was probably built as a schoolroom, and was also used as a vestry. Despite the demolition of the original apse and removal of Melangell's shrine and relics, the tradition surrounding her persisted, and she continued to be associated with the cell-y-bedd.
Restoration efforts
The current church tower was built during restoration work in 1876–1877, replacing the previous tower of unknown age. In 1878 new pews and a new altar table were added, and in honour of the restoration a yew tree was planted in the churchyard. St Melangell's Church was transferred to the parish of Llangynog in 1878, and in 1886 the adjacent rectory and vicarage were sold.
After the 19th-century restoration work, the church largely remained in obscurity, and the building deteriorated. With a diminishing congregation, funds were scarce. The condition of the cell-y-bedd was cause for concern by 1954 and there were suggestions that it be demolished entirely. In 1958 the cell-y-bedd was repaired, and the shrine was reconstructed based on a design by the archaeologist Ralegh Radford; minor repair work and excavation in the church and cell-y-bedd was also undertaken.
By the 1980s the church had once again deteriorated and was in danger of demolition. At the same time, Paul Davies, the parish priest of Meifod, bought a cottage near the church with his wife following her recovery from cancer. Davies was licensed by the diocese to look after the church on a voluntary basis; under his care, a cancer help centre was started out of their cottage and a complete restoration was undertaken. Work began in 1989, during which the apse was rebuilt and the shrine moved to the chancel. The medieval effigies were moved to the chancel as well, and the furnishings of the church were repaired and rearranged. The church had no electricity or heating, and was still lit with oil lamps; electricity was installed in the church for the first time during the restoration. A service of thanksgiving, attended by the Archbishop of Wales Alwyn Rice Jones, was held on 27 May 1992 in commemoration of the restoration work.
After the death of Paul Davies in 1994, his wife Evelyn took over and continued to develop the shrine's ministries, becoming the first "shrine guardian" of Pennant Melangell. Evelyn Davies was succeeded in the position, which oversees the ministries of the church, by Linda Mary Edwards in 2003 and Lynette Norman in 2011. Since her appointment in 2016, the shrine guardian has been Christine Browne.
Modern pilgrimage
In the 21st century, Pennant Melangell has continued to attract pilgrims, both religious and non-religious. In a 2004 survey of pilgrimage to the site, common motivations for visiting included spiritual, historical, archaeological, and architectural interest. The survey covered religious observance: 83% of visitors attended church at least once a year, and 17% were non-churchgoers; 51% of non-churchgoers expressed spiritual interest in the site, and 38% of non-churchgoers partook in overtly religious activities while at the church, such as prayer and candle-lighting. The isolated, scenic location of the church was also a factor in attracting visitors, and played a role in pilgrims' perception of the site as sacred.
A 2013–2016 study at the shrine analysed the content of prayers left by visitors, primarily in the form of prayer cards and notes in a prayer-request book. The prayers indicated that visitors to the shrine come from diverse religious backgrounds, including Franciscan nuns, members of a new religious group, Baptists, Methodists, and Russian Orthodox. Many of the prayers referenced cancer, reflecting the influence of the cancer ministry. Other themes found in the prayers include Melangell herself, the sanctity of the location, nature, and womanhood.
Archaeological excavations
In 1958 the cell-y-bedd was partially excavated during reconstruction of the shrine, during which the wooden floor was removed. Below was a cobblestone floor, with a large slab set into it. Underneath the slab was a grave containing pebbles, soil, and fragments of bone. The footings of the medieval apse were also discovered under the walls. Between 1989 and 1994, excavation was undertaken in the cell-y-bedd, in the chancel and nave, and to the north of the church.
The 1989–1994 excavations in the cell-y-bedd revealed prehistoric activity at the site. Several small pits filled with loam were discovered with high concentrations of charcoal and bone fragments, indicating cremation burial. Radiocarbon dating of two of the pits dated the deposits to the Middle Bronze Age. The pits were found underneath several layers of medieval flooring within the subsoil. Twenty-nine pits in total were found in the vicinity of the apse, and many of them contained human bone fragments. Underneath the walls of the cell-y-bedd were the footings of the medieval apse wall, which was semicircular and contemporary with the east wall of the chancel. A large early medieval stone slab, possibly a grave or a footing of the medieval apse, was also identified underneath the floor, as was a posthole cutting through multiple layers of flooring. To the east of the cell-y-bedd, 13 graves were identified, three of which predated the structure and several of which had skeletal remains. A portion of a charnel deposit to the south of the cell-y-bedd was also found, containing disarticulated human skeletons.