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these three works are anything to go by, no longer content with a church 'guide' or skimpy 'Notes' xeroxed on two sides of a sheet of A4. Llanmadoc and Cheriton are adjacent communities on Gower, their churches only a mile apart. Dr. Cowley adopts a chronological ap- proach to their history, but sets it firmly in a wider context. His style is rather more pedestrian than that adopted by Hilary Thomas in her study of the Vale of Glamorgan parish of Ystradowen, but here the fault lies in the structure of the narrative. Miss Thomas' work is not divided into sections or chapters, but woven together into a seamless cloak. The result is a somewhat breathless overview, the tran- sitions from one theme to another occasionally awkward or contriv- ed. These are, however, only blemishes on two works which have been thoroughly researched and are well documented. David Smith also knows his subject well. He has been organist of St. Martin's for many years, and as well as more obvious source material has made skilful use of a wide range of parochial ephemera, service sheets and posters. It is no surprise that he has found much of interest in the musical history of his church. So all three works demonstrate not only something of the range of material available to the author of a parochial history, but how it can be used and interpreted. Both Cowley and Smith, inevitably, highlight the impact of the Anglo- Catholic Revival upon their parishes, and in particular focus on the dominant- perhaps domineering- personalities of long-serving in- cumbents, at Llanmadocjohn David Davies from 1860-1911 and at St. Martin's Arthur Baring-Gould from 1908-1955. Davies, scholar, antiquary, member of the Ecclesiological Society, restorer ofchur- ches and himself a talented woodcarver, was secure in the support of the Talbot family of Margam and Penrice. This, as Cowley points out, deflected or suppressed much of the criticism of his Tractarian and Anglo-Catholic emphases in an otherwise tradition- ally 'low' rural deanery. His photograph (p.21) reveals the man. Above the frock coat and Roman collar is the piercing gaze, determined chin and grim expression of one who would tolerate no question of his rule. The introduction of eucharistic vestments into his churches early in his incumbency seems, perhaps not surprisingly, to have gone unchallenged.