The ancient church at Llantrisant, Anglesey is tucked behind a farm. Among the plastered walls and panelled pews, is a marble Baroque monument. It dates to 1670 and commemorates Hugo Williams. It was erected by his son, William Williams, ‘a man of some dash and bravado’.
Born at Llantrisant in 1634, William Williams became named Speaker of the House of Commons – a role for which he felt himself to be eminently fitted. He became Treasurer of Gray’s Inn, for alongside his parliamentary career he continued a high-profile practice at the bar.
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But his career was marked by sudden changes of allegiance - and hence gave rise to his nickname as 'the arch trimmer' – a person who fluctuates between political parties.
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His support of the unpopular James II alienated many of his friends, especially after his nomination as the king’s Solicitor-General in 1687, the grant of a knighthood, and in 1688 a baronetcy.
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As Solicitor-General Williams led for the Crown in James’s attack on the 7 Anglican bishops he imprisoned for refusing to co-operate in his religious policy… but, the bishops were triumphantly acquitted, Williams’s career was in tatters …and the king’s days were numbered.
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But miraculously, Williams lived to fight another day. In 1689 he was elected MP for Beaumaris, Anglesey. By now, he was a prominent supporter of William III and Mary II – reversing he previously allegiance to James II, who had fled to France.
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Nonetheless within a few years he fell out with his new sovereigns.
He died at his Gray’s Inn chambers in July 1700, and is buried at Llansilin in Denbighshire, where his mural monument can still be seen.
Given the dereliction at St Helen’s, Barmby on the Marsh, only fragments of the Victorian decorative schemes survive. However, we have been able to pick out some layers, and gain an idea of how this church may have looked in the 1850s and 1870s.
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The earliest surviving scheme is simple and sober. It comprises a pinkish-brown dado to approximately a metre in height. Then a coat of powder blue runs to the ceiling. Just above the dado, a stencil scheme of light brown of repeating palmettes flows around the entire nave.
St Michael's, Tremaen, in Ceredigion was constructed in the 1840s with an ashlar facing of distinctive Pwntan sandstone, quarried from nearby Tanygroes. ...
Pwntan is an Ordovician sandstone, making it about 440-480 million years old. This pale, fine-grained, ironstained stone can be precisely cut by skilled masons. The tight interlocking of polygonal stone blocks at Tremaen is masterful.
Local blogger & Welsh stone enthusiast Caroline Palmer puts it perfectly:
‘So close is the fit that mortar looks to have been almost superfluous, and ... the whole external surface of the church resembles a complex jigsaw puzzle in which no two pieces are even similar.'
From the 1830s to the 1990s surveyors made these benchmarks to record height above Ordnance Datum Newlyn (ODN – mean sea level determined at Newlyn in Cornwall). From this reference, the elevation of another benchmark could be calculated by measuring the difference in heights.
The horizontal marks supported a stable ‘bench’ that a levelling stave could rest on. This design ensured that a stave could be accurately repositioned in the future and that all marks were uniform.
Over a stone stile, St Andrew's, Bayvil nestles in crunchy bracken. Overlooking Newport Bay, the church survives almost entirely as the Georgians left it.
But St Andrew's is a bit of an enigma. Nobody knows when it was built or by whom.
From the outside the Gothick windows are the only hint of what may lie inside.. Lifting the latch on the bead-and-butt west door, an interior “of delightful and luminous simplicity” is revealed.
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A complete set of box pews lines the south wall. A crenelated vestry enclosure takes up the northwest corner. But the chief joy is the triple-decker panelled pulpit, reading desk, and clerk’s desk - the former so tall it almost touches the ceiling with its sounding board.
In the UK, there are more churches dedicated to Mary than any other saint.
The cult of the Blessed Virgin Mary really took hold in the Middle Ages. Mary was adored by monastic orders, who promoted stories of her miracles. By 1066 she had six annual feasts.
Mary came to be depicted as the Queen of Paradise surrounded by red and white rosebushes: red for love and martyrdom, white for purity. (Later the white roses were ditched and the lily was adopted as the symbol of purity.)
But where did it all come from?
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The rose first appears as a romantic symbol in Hellenic poetry. Roman legends connecting Venus with roses establish two enduring connections with the God of Love and the blood of a divine martyr. Mary has been compared to the mystical rose since the Church’s earliest days.