over the hills and far away.... II

     From one atmospheric church to another: the numinous St Michael, Myddfai. Myddfai is a very small but immensely attractive village, a meeting of three roads - think of the letter 'Y' or, better still, a cocktail glass with the church as the olive in the martini.  The feel is, oddly, just a little urban.
     The church is a delight, hardly any clutter and filled with light.  There are old floors and limewashed walls.  As at Llanddeusant the church consists of two naves separated by an arcade and roofed with wooden barrel vaults, all however on a larger, more spacious scale.  Hard to believe that the church has been restored three times since 1870.  Some good fittings too in the way of memorials and the like: in the porch is an early eighteenth century slab commemorating two of the 'Physicians of Myddfai', David Jones and his son also called David; and in the N chancel some ledger stones including one to Henry Owen, that also commemorating also his uncle the Laudian cleric Morgan Owen - Laud's chaplain, commissioner the s porch of St Mary the Virgin in Oxford from Nicholas Stone (1637) and from 1639 Bishop of Llandaff.  The Civil War prevented him from taking up his position and he died in 1644, being buried here in his childhood village. There used to be a proper monument but it was broken up in the 19th century. A pity. The liturgical fittings aren't up to much but that is of small report when the church itself is so beautiful and atmospheric.