Welsh Journals

PENNANT MELANGELL PART 5 A Structural History of Pennant Melangell Church R.B. HEATON' and W.J. BRITNELL with a note by M. LL. CHAPMAN INTRODUCTION Pennant Melangell, like most medieval churches, has undergone many changes since it was first built, whether for maintenance or for meeting the changing demands of church liturgy, architectural fashion and comfort. New evidence has come to light during the course of the repairs and alterations undertaken between 1989 and 1994 which calls for a substantial revision of the sequence proposed by Radford and Hemp in 1959.2 The following account provides a summary of the structural history of the church, based on the results of archaeologial excavation and recording and on the observations made during the course of these works. Most importantly this throws new light on firstly the original form of the 12th-century church and shrine dedicated to St Melangell, and secondly, on the suppression of this cult at the time of the Reformation. DOCUMENTARY EVIDENCE The earliest surviving documentary reference to the church appears in the Valuation of Norwich ofc. 1254 in which the ecclesia de Pennant is valued at 2 marks ( £ 1 6s 8d),3 a figure which lies just below the average value within the diocese of St Asaph as a whole. The local status of the church can also be estimated by comparison with the neighbouring churches which also fell within the deanery of Marchia: Llanrhaeadr-ym-Mochnant, Hirnant, and Llangynog, for example, were valued at 4 marks, 10s and 5s respectively. In the Lincoln Taxation ofc. 1291 the church was divided between a rectory and vicarage, valued at £ 10 Os Od and £ 4 3s 4d respectively.4 By then, less than 40 years later, the value of the church fell within the top quarter of churches in the diocese, perhaps due to a rapid rise in the popularity of the cult of St Melangell. Although little is known of this cult, it is evident from the poems of Guto'r Glyn that by the 15th century pilgrims from far afield might seek a remedy for their ailments by visiting the 1 Bron Offa, Adwy, Coedpoeth, Wrexham, Clwyd, LL 11 3LP; Partner TACP Architects, 27/29 Grosvenor Road, Wrexham LL 1 1 I DH. The authors are grateful for the help given by other contributors to this volume, and to the Ven. T. W. Pritchard who made available his transcriptions of various parish records housed in the NLW. 2C.A.R. Radford & W.J. Hemp, Pennant Melangell: the church and the shrine, Archaeologia Cambrensis 108 (1959),81-113. 3E.R. Morris, A valuation for Tenths in the Diocese of St Asaph c. 1253, Montgomeryshire Collections 21 (1887), 331- 338; D.R. Thomas, The History of the Diocese of St Asaph, vol. 1, (2nd edn, Oswestry 1908).41; D. Pratt, St Asaph Diocese, 1254, Denbighshire Historical Society Transactions 42 (1993), 112. 4Taxatio Ecclesiastica Angliae et Walliae Auctoritate P. Nicholai IV, (Record Commisson, 1802), 286.