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Amroth is a small coastal village in the south
east corner of Pembrokeshire. The older industries
of mining, farming and fishing have now been mainly
overtaken by holiday activities. The name ‘Amroth’
has several possible origins, one of these being
perhaps ‘Lanrath’ meaning ‘the
(church)lands around a fort’. The change
in the centre of gravity of the village due to
the coastal development in the last century, now
means that the Church lies on the northern boundary
of the Parish nearly a mile from the main part
of the village.
There is evidence that there had been two Churches
in the Parish from early times. Irish missionaries
coming to Pembrokeshire in the 4th century would
have founded a very crude cell in the shelter
of the rath or fort. By the 9th century there
were two Churches at opposite ends of the Parish,
the eastern one being a small building some 200
yards from the site of the present building.
The dedication to St Elidyr is obscure. There
are three other Churches in the locality with
this dedication. They are at Crunwere, Ludchurch
and Stackpole Elidyr. One possibility is that
they were dedicated by St Elidur de Stackpole,
the processional cross bearer when Archbishop
Baldwin led his crusade through Wales at the end
of the 12th century. In the ‘Lives of British
Saints’ the authors suggest the dedication
may be to a 12th century pilgrim, ‘Elidyr
the Courteous’. Or it could just be that
a scribe’s error for the Welsh Saint ‘Teilo’
who was also known as ‘Eluid‘ may
have mistakenly given us ‘Elidyr’.
The present Church is of 13th century Early English
architectural style, the older parts being built
in 1490 by John Elliot, the then builder and owner
of Amroth Castle. This replaced the earlier smaller
eastern and western Churches of the Parish with
a single larger building.
In its original design the Church was cruciform
in shape, with conventional Chancel, Nave and
two transepts. The crenellated tower above the
north transept has a spiral staircase in the northwest
corner. In the early 16th century John Elliot
added a chantry chapel to the north of the chancel.
His successors at Amroth Castle, the Biddulph
family, gave the chapel to the Church in 1889,
and also added a vestry to the north wall of the
chapel.
The Church was extended westwards in the middle
of the 19th century, a new south door being added
to replace the original door in the south transept.
A porch with stone bench seats was added at the
same time as the building of the vestry.
There are several memorial tablets in the chapel
and chancel. These are mostly in memory of local
gentry, but three of those on the south wall must
surely be unique. Two were erected by a lady to
her first three husbands, whilst the third was
erected by her fourth and surviving husband! The
chapel contains on its north wall memorial tablets
to the Biddulph family, whilst on the west wall
of the north transept there is the Parish War
Memorial tablet.
The stained glass in the east window of the chancel
is a depiction of the Crucifixion and was installed
in 1890. In the south transept another window
of the same era shows Christ walking on the sea,
and bears the inscription ‘It is I, be not
afraid’. In the west wall of the nave a
modern stained glass window is dedicated to the
memory of a local farmer who was tragically killed
in a vehicle accident at Llanteg. The font, which
is the same age as the Church, is Norman in style,
having a square bowl decorated with sculptured
foliage in relief, and set on a square stem, the
plinth being formed on an inverted font basin
from one of the earlier Churches. The font cover
is dated late 19th century, given by a previous
Vicar in memory of his infant son.
A local iron foundry cast three small bells which
were hung in the belfry of the tower in 1712.
In 1929 the owner of Colby Lodge paid for these
bells to be recast by the Whitechapel Foundry
of London into a new single large bell, and to
be re-hung in the tower along with a new tenor
bell. The bells can be tolled from the north transept.
The remains of the old preaching cross in the
churchyard were previously on the north side of
the Church, but have been moved to a new position
south of the nave. This cross predates the Church
and is probably 9th century in origin. It is set
on three large stone steps, and it is likely that
it lost its carved head at the time of the reformation
in the 16th century when Cromwell ordered the
destruction of all such fixtures.
The churchyard also has many old tombstones, the
earliest of these being dated 1762. There are
a few iron gravestones which were cast by the
same local iron foundry as the three original
Church bells. There is a mounting block and several
stone stiles in the walls. The former for use
of those who came to Church on horseback, and
the latter to stop roaming animals entering the
churchyard!
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