A morning on Gower: St Madog, Llanmadog

     The next village west of Cheriton - at the very north west of the Gower - is Llanmadog.  The sacred enclosure of St Madoc.  Early gravestones found in the churchyard and now inside the church indicate that this was an important site for the early church in this part of Wales. One of the stones dates from the late 5th century and reads: ADVECTI FILIUS GVAN HIC IACIT.

     The founders of the church could not have chosen a more lovely site - there are beautiful views across the estuary of the Loughor, and along the northern shore of the Bristol Channel west toward Tenby.  A serene place. A place to treasure. The church is tiny, just a two celled structure with bristly, dumpy west tower; the interior is atmospheric, redolent of Ecclesiological Society correctness. Again there is a sense of the ancient although the church was enthusiastically restored in the 19th century by John Prichard for Rev J D Davies who, as at Cheriton, made some of the fittings himself. In the porch swallows or martins nest above the church door.