Thread by @oldchurchlover

1/20 Hello everyone. This thread is going to talk about a small community in West Wales (where I live), and efforts to reclaim various elements of its landscape, including a complex social history and rich archaeology which are usually hidden from view #HiddenLandscapes

2/20 Silian is a dispersed rural community near Lampeter in West Wales. It is within the top 20% of Wales’ most deprived areas in terms of access to services, and has no local amenities. There is nowhere for the community to meet and little social interaction #HiddenLandscapes

3/20 The focal point was the church, school, pub & smithy. The last two closed in the 1940s, but life still revolved around school and church. More houses were built. At school, children jostled for a place near the stove and sang together around the piano #HiddenLandscapes

4/20 The local authority closed the school in 1976, handing it back to the Church in Wales. Silian PCC acted as caretakers and the community continued to use it, as playground, polling station and events venue, for Young Farmers’ Club and footie training… #HiddenLandscapes

5/20 But, the land belonged to The Crown Estate, an 1855 reverter clause stating it must be returned when no longer a school. A 10-year legal battle between Church in Wales & Crown Estate saw the school become derelict. The Crown won and erected security fencing #HiddenLandscapes

6/20 The Crown would not donate the building to the community, who then tried to register the land as a village green, arguing they had been using it ‘as of right’ for over 20 years. A public enquiry found in favour of the Crown, who sold the school at auction #HiddenLandscapes

7/20 The church was now the only communal building. The Church in Wales closed the church in 2017, as its dwindling congregation could no longer pay their £5000+ a year Ministry Share, let alone fund extensive repairs to the building #HiddenLandscapes

8/20 The church had been a dependable presence since time immemorial, its festivals marking the rhythms of daily life, its walls witnessing generations of life events. When a congregation member was told ‘the building is only bricks and mortar’ she replied ‘Not to us it isn’t’

9/20 To protect the church, locals asked Cadw to list it, but were told it is ‘not one of the best examples of type’. Designed by R.J. Withers, it is a simple, High Victorian rural parish church with an unusual geometrical bellecote and pretty, rustic interior #HiddenLandscapes

10/20 Providing locals fund the repairs, the Church in Wales will lease us the building at a peppercorn rent, enabling its transformation into a multi-purpose community hub. A feasibility study (funded by LEADER & the Architectural Heritage Fund) found the project to be viable

11/20 The church site is an important heritage asset (bit.ly/34vTGrn). The curvilinear churchyard has a concentric outer enclosure defined by field boundaries. Fields above and below the church have numerous faintly discernible archaeological features #HiddenLandscapes

12/20 The church building houses 3 early medieval stones. Silian 1, built into the external south wall, dates to the 5th- to 6th- C. It reads ‘Silbandus iacit’, the personal name probably giving rise to the dedication (St Sulien’s) and settlement name (Silian) #HiddenLandscapes

13/20 A 9th-10th C carved stone pillar, Silian 2, is decorated with knotwork and fretwork. It formerly stood in the churchyard, but has lain loose in the church since the 1960s. Unlike Silian 1&3, it is scheduled and therefore legally protected #HiddenLandscapes

14/20 Silian 3 was (re)discovered in the nearby stream in 2013, forgotten by locals since a plaster cast was made for the National Museum of Wales around 1914. The find generated much new interest in the archaeology of the site. Read about it here bit.ly/2SCDGOx

15/20. Professor Nancy Edwards came to record it. The Early Medieval Wales Archaeology Research Group visited. Locals felt new pride in the site’s early Christian origins. Silian 2&3 were placed by the alter and the medieval font bowl also received new interest #HiddenLandscapes

16/20 Together, the artefacts are critical in understanding Silian’s unique place in the region’s pre- and early post-Conquest ecclesiastical history. They are also an integral part of Silian’s community identity – a link with the distant, ‘ancestral’ past
#HiddenLandscapes

17/20 Despite some uncertainty, it has now been decided that the artefacts will remain in the church for now, but if the community project is unsuccessful they will be relocated, not only breaking their direct link with the locality, but splitting the collection #HiddenLandscapes

18/20 Our new Community Benefit Society is working on a strategic plan to safeguard Silian’s church building, archaeology & social history into the future. Our new gardening group is reclaiming outdoor communal spaces & a newly-installed butterfly garden now overlooks the church

19/20 A shared identity is created and maintained through the negotiation and exploration of memories. The church building and shared outdoor spaces will provide a space for the community to engage with its past, whilst producing new memories into the future #HiddenLandscapes

20/20
This presentation stemmed from my PhD research on early medieval ecclesiastical sites & role as director of Menter Silian. For more info, see our Facebook page, Hen Eglwys Silian Old Church bit.ly/2GH0SbR Follow us on Twitter @HenEglwysSilian
#HiddenLandscapes

Silian 3 being moved from the stream into the church for safe keeping