Ednol Chapel

Summary description and reason for designation

The monument comprises the ruins of a medieval chapel, known as Ednol Chapel, which is located within a large, sub-rectangular enclosure occupying a gentle north-facing slope in a pasture field overlooking a valley on the eastern side of Radnor Forest. Ednol was a chapel of ease to Old Radnor, serving remote communities on the opposite side of the Walton Basin and the uplands of Radnor Forest.

The chapel was a single-celled structure measuring approximately 12m east-west by 6.5m externally. In use until at least 1833, it is recorded as being a ruin in the 1888 Ordnance Survey map; and described in 1913 as roofless, but substantially intact, with the remains of in situ timbers and openings. It has since been reduced to a substantial rubble mound with a sunken interior, although the positions of the walls and a southern entrance are still visible. The walls survive to at least 1.5m in height beneath the rubble and short lengths of internal facing survive in the west, north and east walls. A raised, almost square rubble mound, extends 5m to the west of the west wall, and may represent the collapsed remains of a small west tower or bell-turret.

The chapel is located within the northern part of a large sub-rectangular churchyard. A surviving ornamental cast iron gatepost marks the original entrance midway along the western churchyard boundary from where a hollow way leads eastwards to the chapel. The churchyard boundary is defined by a low earthwork bank surmounted by the intermittent remains of iron railings of eighteenth or nineteenth century date on the north, east and west sides. The southern side is defined by a substantial scarp and hedge boundary. All four boundaries incorporate mature, and probably deliberately planted, rowan trees.

The monument is of national importance as a rare, albeit ruinous, example of a medieval chapel of ease and churchyard. Having escaped later nineteenth or twentieth century interventions, it is likely to retain substantial buried structural remains and evidence of the construction and development of both chapel and enclosure, and potentially of associated burials. The monument retains high potential to enhance our knowledge and understanding of medieval ecclesiastical architecture, and religious and funerary practices.