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©Jennifer Luther Thomas
Dist:0.2km<br/>The Lord's prayer on the left, the Creed on the right and in the middle the 10 commandments (hence the alternative term Decalogue board). Such boards replaced Popish decoration in the Elizabethan period and continued thereafter to act an aide-memoir to the congregation.
©ceridwen
Dist:0.2km<br/>
©Mick Lobb
Dist:0.2km<br/>
©Mick Lobb
Dist:0.3km<br/>The history of this church is something of a puzzle: it succeeded as parish church another, now-ruined, St Mary's, on Pennard Burrows, which was inundated by sand and abandoned in the C16. However it would appear from several mediaeval features here that this church is as old, if not older, than the ruined church which lay a mile away, by Pennard castle and the settlement that once existed there. This church stands on the road between Southgate and Kittle near the settlement called Highway and just south of Kilvrough Manor.
©ceridwen
Dist:0.3km<br/>Vernon Watkins flowered early and subsequently lived out his modest life in Pennard, commuting to Lloyds bank in Swansea where he became, he claimed, the 'oldest cashier'in banking. At the same time he was a highly regarded lyric poet of a metaphysical bent, friend of Dylan Thomas and other notable poets and at the time of his sudden death was being considered for the Laureateship.
©ceridwen
Dist:0.3km<br/>Although restored (in 1847 according to the date on the porch) the church retained several mediaeval characteristics including the columns beside the east window and a wall recess in the chancel. The altar railings follow a pattern dictated in 1640 to prevent dogs approaching the altar table, the pulpit is also C17th but brought here from Shiplake church in Oxfordshire. The organ replaced a C18 barrel organ in the gallery, now in St Fagan's museum. Above the chancel arch is a painted board with the Lord's prayer and the creed.
©ceridwen
Dist:0.3km<br/>Algernon McClennan Lyons, aide-de-camp to Queen Victoria and an admiral of the fleet, was the husband of the Louisa-Jane, daughter of the second Thomas Penrice from whom she inherited the Kilvrough estate in 1897.
©ceridwen
Dist:0.3km<br/>The tower has a corbelled parapet and is battlements like so many others in Gower but is distinguished in the successive increases in its width. There is a theory that these Norman churches were fortified as much against pirates as against the Welsh.
©ceridwen
Dist:0.3km<br/>This is the extended area behind the church for recent burials, with a view of Cefn Bryn in the distance.
©ceridwen
Dist:0.3km<br/>Thomas Penrice was a native of Great Yarmouth who purchased the nearby Kilvrough estate at auction in 1820 when he was only 27. He was a captain in the 16th Queen's Lancers who served under Wellington in the peninsular wars but he died without issue in 1846. The estate, along with all the extra lands he had amassed across South Wales passed to his nephew and namesake.
©ceridwen
Dist:0.3km<br/>These doors, always in the shady north wall of a church, would opened at baptisms for the exorcised devil to escape! They were usually blocked up in less superstitious, and more draft-conscious, times.
©ceridwen
Dist:0.3km<br/>The beam supporting the gallery formed part of a mediaeval rood screen that divided the chancel from the nave. The font (apart from the stand) also dates from the Middle Ages.
©ceridwen
Dist:0.3km<br/>We are informed that the pulpit, with its lovely early C17 Jacobean carving, was made for Shiplake church in Oxfordshire [[65927]] but not when or why it was removed here. It is said to have been cut down to fit its new situation. (Note the strange little faces at the top corners.)
©ceridwen
Dist:0.6km<br/>Heavy rainfall make maintenance on this section impossible.
©John Duckfield

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Pennard Discussion Forum

  • Former chapel demolished

    Hi there, can anyone tell me what happened to the 'Eastmoor' Lettings on Clyne Common? I believe it was formerly a children's home with chapel attached. I lived in the one of the converted chapel …
    Ronniebabes in Clyne Common, Wednesday 09 May, 2012


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