Brings a whole new meaning to "LightHouse"
Imagine a fairy cake with a perfect tiny white-iced church on top and you have a picture of St Cwyfan's.
The 'church in the sea' is perched on top of an island, shored up with stone walls, off the coast of Aberffraw on the west coast of Anglesey. It was originally built on a peninsula, but the sea has nibbled away at the surrounding land over the centuries.
The building of the sea wall 130 years ago has preserved the current building.
St Cwyfan's appears to be different things to different people.
John Hughes, the local historian known locally as John Bess, shares his knowledge of the building and its history with boundless enthusiasm. He's currently planting a garden on the "mainland" overlooking the church, in preparation for the siting of a bench where the structure can be appreciated. St Cwyfan's is cut off by the tide, and when the land was originally eaten away locals were distressed to find skeletons washed onto the shores as graves tumbled into the waves. Later an extension to the church fell into the water during a storm. Parishioners did try to use it regularly, however, by building a stone causeway to get to the church at low tide, but eventually that was lost to the sea too. Megan Harris, who cleans the church, gets tongue-tied while explaining that her family's links go back several generations: the place is simply "special," she says. Church warden Roy Mearns sees it as a symbol of how Christianity developed, and indeed prospered, after St Cwyfan's came over from Ireland, in the 6th Century, and built a straw roofed house of worship on the same site.
'Sunday best'
The donation of the electric organ, by John Hughes, is seen as exciting by all those involved. A petrol-powered generator is set up outside and then Elizabeth Roberts becomes the first person ever to play an electric organ within St Cwyfan's walls.
It is a "privilege, I'm so glad I got the chance to do this", she said.
Both Mrs Roberts and John Hughes remember attending services at the church, and once they arrived before the tide had gone out.
"We had to stay on the beach in our Sunday best until we could cross," she said.
John Hughes sang along to Love Divine, filling the simple space which houses an altar and wooden chairs. It was a hair-standing-up-on-the-back-of-the-neck moment. Only three services are held at St Cwyfan's each year, with the first this Sunday afternoon. It is also opened for weddings, which would be wildly romantic, and for christening local children, linking the visitors to this pretty, sturdy little church, to all those who have done the same over the centuries.
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