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Images of Wales Back to Webpage Archive
The feature below was first shown on my website on 26 September 2004
Images of Wales
Where's that?? - locate Llangyfelach on a map of South Wales.
Page 1 (below) Page 2
Above: Signboard at the entrance to
the parish churchyard. |
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The Parish of Llangyfelach
Glamorgan
Photography by John Ball - 8 April 2002
(scanned from prints taken with a Sigma SA-300 35-mm SLR camera)
In January 2001, I was commissioned by a lady in the USA to take some photographs relating to the life of her Welsh ancestors in the county of Glamorgan. I completed the first part of the commission in May 2001, but ill health forced me to put the remainder of the commission on hold. I resumed the following year and completed the commission in April 2002.
The photographs selected for this Images of Wales feature illustrate the ancient parish of Llangyfelach on the west side of the Swansea Valley. Covering an area of 11,000 hectares (43 square miles), Llangyfelach was an extensive parish, at one time extending almost to the centre of Swansea. The southern part of the parish is now mainly urban and lies inside the City of Swansea, but the northern part is still largely remote and rural. |
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| Above: Llangyfelach village green (centre), with the Plough and Harrow Inn (left) and the old tower of Llangyfelach church (right). |
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| Above: The old church tower of St Cyfelach's viewed from the east, along the path running east-west through the churchyard. |
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Left: The old church tower. The tower is said to date from circa AD 1200 but its walls contain features dating back to the 7th century AD.
The tower is all that remains of the original church which was demolished after storm damage in 1803. A new church was built close by (see below).
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Above: The old church tower (left) and new church (centre and right). The surviving tombstones are up to 400 years old. See Welsh Churches & Chapels Collection for
further details of church.
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| Above: The church schoolhouse (left) and Gainsborough Hotel (right). These buildings are alongside the southern entrance to the churchyard and overlook the village green. The schoolhouse dates from 1837.
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Above: Bethel Calvinistic Methodist chapel, first built in 1856, is situated opposite the eastern entrance to St Cyfelach's Churchyard (see Welsh Churches & Chapels Collection
for further details of chapel).
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Explore the more rural parts of the parish on Page 2
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Images of Wales Back to Webpage Archive
Please write via my Contact Page with your comments about my photographs.
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