St Dwynwen, Llanddwyn Island

The ruined church of St Dwynwen stands in a hollow at the centre of Llanddwyn Island (Ynys Llanddwyn), Anglesey, a Grade II listed building and scheduled monument on a former pilgrimage site dedicated to the Welsh patroness of lovers.

Overview

Cadw lists the Church of St Dwynwen at Grade II (reference 5446), designated 5 February 1952. The remains are mainly early sixteenth-century: a cruciform plan of which foundations and parts of the south-east transept and the south-west corner of the nave survive, built of rubble with brown sandstone dressings. The south-east transept walls are the most complete, the south-east wall still standing above window height. RCAHMW noted that the chancel appears early sixteenth-century, the transepts probably contemporary, and the nave lower courses possibly earlier; the church was a prebend of Bangor Cathedral. It is also scheduled as AN046.

Archaeological work ahead of Cadw conservation found a multi-phase building, probably late twelfth- or early thirteenth-century in origin, unusually orientated north-east–south-west, in a formerly circular churchyard. A mid-eighteenth-century engraving already shows the church roofless. Llanddwyn was a wealthy pilgrimage church in the later Middle Ages; in 1535 offerings to the saint far exceeded the parish tithes. The island is reached across sands from Newborough at low tide.

Further Information

• Cadw listed building report 5446
• Coflein: St Dwynwen’s Church