St Govan Chapel, Bosherston
St Govan Chapel, Bosherston
St Govan’s Chapel is a Grade I medieval pilgrimage chapel in a cliff cleft 1 km west of St Govan’s Head, Pembrokeshire, also scheduled as an ancient monument.
- Location
- Bosherston, Pembrokeshire
- Country
- Wales
- County
- Pembrokeshire
- City / town
- Bosherston
- Address
- St Govans Head, Bosherston, Pembrokeshire, SA71 5DR
- Postcode
- SA71 5DR
- Built
- Early medieval single-cell chapel
- Denomination
- Other
- Dedication
- Govan
- Grade
- I
- Style
- Medieval pilgrimage chapel
- Materials
- Limestone masonry in large blocks, built off the rock; modern pointed slate roof
- Grid reference
- SR 967 929
- Opening hours
- Open access site, usually accessible at any reasonable time.
- Access
- Reached by a road across the Castlemartin range; access is sometimes restricted during firing. A long flight of steps descends from the clifftop to the chapel and well.
Overview
Cadw records an early medieval chapel built across a gap in the cliffs at the rock cleft where St Gobhan (Abbot of Dairinis, County Wexford, d.586) was believed to have hidden from pirates. The chapel and well were famed for cures of lameness and eye disease and were described as famous in the seventeenth century. The single cell has a steeply pointed vault, about 5.3 m by 3.8 m and 5 m high, aligned with the altar slightly north of east.
The fabric is limestone in large blocks, roughly brought to courses and built directly off the rock; part of the west wall is natural rock. There is a modern pointed slate roof, an empty west bell-turret, a pointed north entrance, and a west doorway with a segmental lintel. A third doorway beside the altar leads into the rock cleft, treated as an integral room. Inside are plastered walls and vault, a rubble altar, low side benches, a piscina, and a later large south window already shown in Campbell’s 1757 engraving. Cadw lists it Grade I as an important medieval pilgrimage chapel used for miraculous cures into the nineteenth century.