Qualla: St Cwyfan's Church, Llangwyfan

St Cwyfan's Church, Llangwyfan: Introduction

Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Cat, CC BY 2.0. Twice a day, the sea closes around St Cwyfan's. The 12th-century church sits on a small grass-topped mound of rock called Cribinau off the south coast of Anglesey, no more than fifty yards across, ringed by a low stone wall built to keep the Atlantic from finishing the job it had already started. At low tide a stone causeway emerges from the beach and you can walk across. At high water, the causeway disappears and the church is left alone with the gulls and the wind. In Welsh it has a quieter name than its English nickname suggests: Eglwys fach y mor, 'the little church of the sea'.

Image: Cat | CC BY 2.0

St Cwyfan's Church, Llangwyfan: An Irish Dedication on a Welsh Coast

Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Eric Jones, CC BY-SA 2.0. Cwyfan - or, more familiarly across the water in Ireland, Saint Kevin - was a 6th-century Irish abbot best known for founding the monastery of Glendalough in County Wicklow. Welsh dedications to Irish saints turn up surprisingly often along this coast; the Irish Sea was less a ba...

Image: Eric Jones | CC BY-SA 2.0

St Cwyfan's Church, Llangwyfan: The Trial of Doctor Bowles

Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Eric Jones, CC BY-SA 2.0. In 1766 the Bishop of Bangor, John Egerton, appointed an elderly English priest named Dr Thomas Bowles to the parish of Trefdraeth - which included St Cwyfan's as its chapelry. Bowles spoke no Welsh. The parish and chapelry between them had about five hundred parishioners; all bu...

Image: Eric Jones | CC BY-SA 2.0

St Cwyfan's Church, Llangwyfan: A Ruling for the Language, a Reprieve for the Priest

Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit bigt, CC BY-SA 2.0. The Dean of the Arches, George Hay, delivered his judgement in January 1773. He ruled - clearly and on the record - that only clergy who could speak Welsh should be appointed to Welsh-speaking parishes, and that Bowles should not have been appointed. But, he added, Bowles now hel...

Image: bigt | CC BY-SA 2.0

St Cwyfan's Church, Llangwyfan: Walking Out at Low Tide

Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Stephen Elwyn RODDICK, CC BY-SA 2.0. Today the church is still consecrated, occasionally used for services on summer evenings, and accessible at low water across the causeway. The building is small - a simple nave, slate roof, whitewashed walls, a single bellcote. Inside, a few pews, an altar, the smell of damp ston...

Image: Stephen Elwyn RODDICK | CC BY-SA 2.0