The congregation

This old church was made redundant decades ago and is gradually lapsing into ruination. When it closed the regular attenders numbered three.

It's a Victorian rebuild of a much older church. How old is not certain but there are crosses carved in the gateposts that date back to the 7th-9th centuries. It's likely though that there was an even earlier, pre-Christian place of worship here. The circular shape of the churchyard indicates that and in the field where I'm standing is a Holy Well of pagan origin. I was going to blip that but the spring was dry.

As I sat beside it these sheep came up and looked directly at me. I was struck by the idea that they were the lost congregation wondering what had happened to their church, and why is it closed and derelict? I imagined that Celtic deities might, like Circe turning Odysseus's sailors into pigs, have bewitched these Christian upstarts and given them woolly fleeces and bleating voices. Meanwhile the Christian church sinks back into inexorably into the landscape as the forces of nature work their will upon it.

When my elder son started at secondary school he had to do a project on a local building of historical interest. He (well, I actually) chose this one. We were shown around by an old man who had been the church warden here all his adult life. He was full of information and had a fund of stories. One in particular I recall: the vicar at one time lived in a village a few miles away and hired a taxi every Sunday to come and conduct the service here. One day, his car was stopped en route by police who had captured a prisoner escaped from Swansea gaol. They ordered his driver to convey them to Fishguard police station 'in the name of the King'. The vicar demurred, 'Drive on' he said ' in the name of the King of Kings!' His congregation was waiting and he did not let them down. Baaa!