St Mary, Llanllugan

St Mary’s stands in a roughly circular churchyard at Llanllugan, Powys. Cadw lists it at Grade II* as the church of the only pre-Reformation nunnery in North Wales, a small Perpendicular building of the fifteenth century.

Overview

Cadw records that St Mary of Llanllugan was originally a nunnery church, founded about 1200. The present church is almost entirely fifteenth-century: an undivided chancel and nave, south porch and west bellcote in early Perpendicular style, of random masonry under a slate roof. Blocked doorways on the north and south sides may have led to cloisters or conventual buildings. The east window has Perpendicular panel tracery of three lights. Inside, the medieval roof has arched collar beams with raked cusped struts and two tiers of short cusped wind braces. The east window contains fifteenth-century stained glass, reassembled in 1891, depicting a Crucifixion, a king, an abbess and a Latin inscription. A small circular font of about 1200 stands on a modern base.

A wooden plaque states that £25 was awarded for reseating and restoring the church in 1873. Church Heritage Cymru notes a possible early medieval foundation, a Cistercian house by Maredudd ap Robert, Lord of Cedewain, as a daughter of Strata Marcella, and restoration in 1874 when a gallery was removed. The house was dissolved in 1536. The church is in the Diocese of St Asaph.

Further Information

• Cadw listed building 7579
• Church Heritage Cymru: St Mary, Llanllugan
• Monastic Wales: Llanllugan