Cof Cymru: National Historic Assets of Wales · Wales
Church of St Michael
Abergwili, Carmarthenshire, Wales
The record
- Designation
- Listed building, Grade II
- Broad class
- Religious, Ritual and Funerary
- Date of designation
- 30 November 1966
- Locality
- Llanfihangel-uwch-gwili
- Community
- Abergwili
- Unitary authority
- Carmarthenshire
- Country
- Wales
- Coordinates
- 51.88397, -4.19667
- Cadw reference
- 9386
Slide toward Today to fade the historical sheet and see the modern map underneath.
David Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford LibrariesDavid Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford LibrariesDavid Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford LibrariesDavid Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford LibrariesDavid Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford Libraries
Shown on 5 historical map sheets, the earliest the 1636 "Cornubia : Devonia, Somersetus, Dorcestria, Wiltonia, Glocestria ..." (David Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford Libraries).
Cadw's description
Location
An isolated church on the S side of a minor road approximately 1.2km NNW of Nantgaredig.
History
Nave and chancel are of medieval origin and the tower is post-medieval, but the detail belongs mainly to a restoration of 1906, as do the internal fixtures.
Exterior
A small, simple Gothic style church comprising nave with lower and narrower chancel and W tower. Walls are rubble stone with freestone dressings and red sandstone quoins, the roof is slate. The 3-stage tower is slightly battered to the base and has a corbelled NE stair turret incorporated in the nave wall. It has a pointed S doorway with continuous chamfer and boarded door. In the W face a window to the ringing chamber comprises 2 round-headed lights under a drip mould set well above. All faces have narrow belfry openings. The pyramidal roof has a finial.
The nave has two 2-light windows, with pointed quatrefoil tracery light, but not symmetrically placed. To the L of the windows is a blocked former S doorway. In the chancel S wall is another blocked doorway, and a small medieval cusped window now infilled. The 3-light E window has intersecting tracery. A gabled vestry is on the N side, which has a 2-light N window with doorway to its R, and an E doorway with boarded door. The nave has 2 cusped N windows.
Interior
The nave has a plastered wagon roof, tall plain plastered tower arch and similarly plain but chamfered chancel arch. The chancel has a polygonal boarded wagon roof. A pointed ribbed N door leads to the vestry.
The painted octagonal font is C19. Plain pews have moulded ends and choir stalls have poppy heads. Simple wooden communion rail. There are 2 wall tablets. In the chancel N wall is a memorial to Daniel Davies (d 1828) comprising a marble sarcophagus on slate background. The chancel S wall has a memorial to the Rev Thomas Thomas (d 1926), a simple classical tablet on a slate background, by A M Lewis.
Reason for designation
Listed as a small rural parish church retaining Edwardian character.
Nearby in the register
- Barn to SE of Gilfach y BerthogAgriculture and Subsistenceunder 1 mi
- Gilfach y BerthogDomesticunder 1 mi
- Stables at Gilfach y Berthog, including attached gate piersDomesticunder 1 mi
- Ffynnon-Newydd Standing StonesHenge1 mi
Other entries of the same register within about three miles of this one, by straight line.