St Cristiolus's Church, Llangristiolus
Encyclopedia
St Cristiolus's Church, Llangristiolus is a medieval church near the village of Llangristiolus
Llangristiolus
Llangristiolus is a village in the middle of Anglesey, Wales, southwest of Llangefni, and is named after Saint Cristiolus. The River Cefni flows through the village...

, in Anglesey
Anglesey
Anglesey , also known by its Welsh name Ynys Môn , is an island and, as Isle of Anglesey, a county off the north west coast of Wales...

, north Wales. The village, about 1 miles (1.6 km) from the building, takes its name from the church. Reputedly founded by St Cristiolus in 610, the present building dates from the 12th and 13th centuries. Alterations were made in the 16th century, when the large east window in Perpendicular style was added to the chancel
Chancel
In church architecture, the chancel is the space around the altar in the sanctuary at the liturgical east end of a traditional Christian church building...

 – a window which has been described by one guide to the buildings of north Wales as "almost too big to fit" in the wall. Some restoration work took place in the mid-19th century, when further windows were added and the chancel largely rebuilt.

The church is still in use for weekly Sunday services (in Welsh and English), as part of the Church in Wales
Church in Wales
The Church in Wales is the Anglican church in Wales, composed of six dioceses.As with the primus of the Scottish Episcopal Church, the Archbishop of Wales serves concurrently as one of the six diocesan bishops. The current archbishop is Barry Morgan, the Bishop of Llandaff.In contrast to the...

, and is one of four churches in a combined parish. It is a Grade II* listed building, a national designation given to "particularly important buildings of more than special interest", in particular because of its age and the east window. The church contains a decorated font
Baptismal font
A baptismal font is an article of church furniture or a fixture used for the baptism of children and adults.-Aspersion and affusion fonts:...

 from the 12th century, as well as memorials from the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries. Richard Owen
Richard Owen (minister)
Richard Owen was a Welsh Calvinistic Methodist minister and preacher.-Life and career:Richard Owen was born in 1839 in Llangristiolus, Anglesey, in north Wales. His education was disrupted by the deaths of his father and, in the following year, of his brother...

, a 19th-century Calvinistic Methodist minister from Llangristiolus, is buried in the graveyard.

History and location

St Cristiolus's Church is in central Anglesey
Anglesey
Anglesey , also known by its Welsh name Ynys Môn , is an island and, as Isle of Anglesey, a county off the north west coast of Wales...

, north Wales. It is situated just to the south of the A5 and A55
A55 road
The A55, also known as the North Wales Expressway, is a major road in Britain. Its entire length is a dual carriageway primary route, with the exception of the point where it crosses the Britannia Bridge over the Menai Strait. All junctions are grade separated except for two roundabouts — one...

 roads, on raised ground above Malltraeth Marsh
Malltraeth Marsh
Malltraeth Marsh is a large marsh area in Anglesey, North Wales, located northeast of Malltraeth village, north of Llangaffo and south of Rhostrehwfa...

. The modern village of Llangristiolus
Llangristiolus
Llangristiolus is a village in the middle of Anglesey, Wales, southwest of Llangefni, and is named after Saint Cristiolus. The River Cefni flows through the village...

 is about 1 miles (1.6 km) to the west of the church. The village takes its name from the church: the Welsh word originally meant "enclosure" and then "church", and "-gristiolus" is a modified form of the saint's name.

The date of foundation of the first building on this site is unknown. Geraint Jones, in a 2006 guide to Anglesey churches, wrote that it is thought that St Cristiolus established a church here in 610. Cristiolus, a 7th-century saint about whom little detail is known, was a follower of St Cadfan
Saint Cadfan
Saint Cadfan, ; , Abbot of Tywyn and Bardsey was a Breton Saint who lived in 6th century Wales. A Breton nobleman, he was the son of Eneas Ledewig , and Gwen Teirbron, a daughter of Budic II, a King of Brittany.- Associations & Legacy :...

, a Breton
Breton people
The Bretons are an ethnic group located in the region of Brittany in France. They trace much of their heritage to groups of Brythonic speakers who emigrated from southwestern Great Britain in waves from the 3rd to 6th century into the Armorican peninsula, subsequently named Brittany after them.The...

 saint associated with the Christian community on Bardsey Island
Bardsey Island
Bardsey Island , the legendary "Island of 20,000 saints", lies off the Llŷn Peninsula in the Welsh county of Gwynedd. The Welsh name means "The Island in the Currents", although its English name refers to the "Island of the Bards", or possibly the island of the Viking chieftan, "Barda". It is ...

 in Wales. Cristiolus is also credited with the foundation of the church in Eglwyswrw
Eglwyswrw
Eglwyswrw is a village and parish in the Hundred of Cemais, Pembrokeshire, Wales. It is between Newport and Cardigan just off the A487 road.-Description:Eglwyswrw was a civil parish, area 1498 Ha and had population as follows:...

 in modern-day Pembrokeshire
Pembrokeshire
Pembrokeshire is a county in the south west of Wales. It borders Carmarthenshire to the east and Ceredigion to the north east. The county town is Haverfordwest where Pembrokeshire County Council is headquartered....

, south Wales. He was the brother of St Rhystud, who established the church at Llanrhystud
Llanrhystud
thumb|300px|right|Llanrhystud, Ceredigion Village and church from the bridleway to Castell-bach.Llanrhystud is a small seaside village on the A487 road in the county of Ceredigion, nine miles south of Aberystwyth, Wales. It is named after the early Christian Welsh saint Rhystud.- External links :***...

 in mid-Wales.

The present building dates from the 12th century; it is the only medieval building in the parish. During the 13th century, the chancel
Chancel
In church architecture, the chancel is the space around the altar in the sanctuary at the liturgical east end of a traditional Christian church building...

 was extended, and the older part of the church may have been rebuilt using the previous stones at this time. By 1535, the position of rector of the parish was held by the person holding the position of Archdeacon
Archdeacon
An archdeacon is a senior clergy position in Anglicanism, Syrian Malabar Nasrani, Chaldean Catholic, and some other Christian denominations, above that of most clergy and below a bishop. In the High Middle Ages it was the most senior diocesan position below a bishop in the Roman Catholic Church...

 of Anglesey
Anglesey
Anglesey , also known by its Welsh name Ynys Môn , is an island and, as Isle of Anglesey, a county off the north west coast of Wales...

, as part of the remuneration for that office; this is no longer the case. Further structural changes to the church were made in the early 16th century when some windows were added to the chancel. In 1852, restoration work took place to the nave
Nave
In Romanesque and Gothic Christian abbey, cathedral basilica and church architecture, the nave is the central approach to the high altar, the main body of the church. "Nave" was probably suggested by the keel shape of its vaulting...

 and chancel under Henry Kennedy, architect of the Diocese of Bangor. The chancel was rebuilt, although the east wall and window were retained, and further windows were added in the church.

St Cristiolus's Church is still in regular use and belongs to the Church in Wales
Church in Wales
The Church in Wales is the Anglican church in Wales, composed of six dioceses.As with the primus of the Scottish Episcopal Church, the Archbishop of Wales serves concurrently as one of the six diocesan bishops. The current archbishop is Barry Morgan, the Bishop of Llandaff.In contrast to the...

. It is one of four churches in the combined benefice
Benefice
A benefice is a reward received in exchange for services rendered and as a retainer for future services. The term is now almost obsolete.-Church of England:...

 of Llanfihangel Ysgeifiog (St Michael's Church, Gaerwen) with Llangristiolus with Llaffinan (St Ffinan's Church
St Ffinan's Church, Llanffinan
St Ffinan's Church, Llanffinan is a small 19th-century parish church built in the Romanesque revival style, in Anglesey, north Wales. There has been a church in this area, even if not on this precise location, since at least 1254, and 19th-century writers state that St Ffinan established the first...

) with Llangaffo (St Caffo's Church
St Caffo's Church, Llangaffo
St Caffo's Church, Llangaffo is a 19th-century church, in the south of Anglesey, north Wales, about from the county town, Llangefni. It was constructed in 1846 to replace the previous medieval church in the village of Llangaffo. The new building includes a number of monuments from the old church,...

). It is within the deanery
Deanery
A Deanery is an ecclesiastical entity in both the Roman Catholic Church and the Church of England. A deanery is either the jurisdiction or residence of a Dean.- Catholic usage :...

 of Malltraeth, the archdeaconry of Bangor
Bangor, Gwynedd
Bangor is a city in Gwynedd, north west Wales, and one of the smallest cities in Britain. It is a university city with a population of 13,725 at the 2001 census, not including around 10,000 students at Bangor University. Including nearby Menai Bridge on Anglesey, which does not however form part of...

 and the Diocese of Bangor. The current vicar (as of October 2011) of the four churches, Emlyn Williams, was appointed in 2007; before that, the position had been vacant for 20 years despite many attempts by the Church in Wales to fill it. He is assisted by a curate
Curate
A curate is a person who is invested with the care or cure of souls of a parish. In this sense "curate" correctly means a parish priest but in English-speaking countries a curate is an assistant to the parish priest...

, E. R. Roberts, ordained deacon
Deacon
Deacon is a ministry in the Christian Church that is generally associated with service of some kind, but which varies among theological and denominational traditions...

 in 2011. Services are held every Sunday morning, alternating between a bilingual service of Holy Communion and a service of Morning Prayer; there are no midweek services.

People associated with the church include Henry Maurice
Henry Maurice (Oxford professor)
Henry Maurice was a Welsh clergyman who became Lady Margaret Professor of Divinity at Oxford University.-Life:...

 (elected Lady Margaret Professor of Divinity at the University of Oxford
University of Oxford
The University of Oxford is a university located in Oxford, United Kingdom. It is the second-oldest surviving university in the world and the oldest in the English-speaking world. Although its exact date of foundation is unclear, there is evidence of teaching as far back as 1096...

 shortly before his death in 1691; his father, Thomas, was the perpetual curate
Perpetual curate
A Perpetual Curate was a clergyman of the Church of England officiating as parish priest in a small or sparsely peopled parish or districtAs noted below the term perpetual was not to be understood literally but was used to indicate he was not a curate but the parish priest and of higher...

 of the church) and the 19th-century writer and priest Owen Wynne Jones
Owen Wynne Jones
Owen Wynne Jones , often known by his bardic name of Glasynys, was a Welsh clergyman and author.Owen Wynne Jones was born at a house called Ty'n-y-ffrwd, in the village of Rhostryfan, near Caernarfon. At the age of ten, he was sent to work in the quarry, but later returned to full-time education...

 (who was the curate
Curate
A curate is a person who is invested with the care or cure of souls of a parish. In this sense "curate" correctly means a parish priest but in English-speaking countries a curate is an assistant to the parish priest...

 for a time in the early 1860s). The 19th-century Calvinistic Methodist preacher Richard Owen
Richard Owen (minister)
Richard Owen was a Welsh Calvinistic Methodist minister and preacher.-Life and career:Richard Owen was born in 1839 in Llangristiolus, Anglesey, in north Wales. His education was disrupted by the deaths of his father and, in the following year, of his brother...

 was born in the parish, and is buried in the graveyard that surrounds the church.

Architecture and fittings

The church is built from rubble masonry
Rubble masonry
Rubble masonry is rough, unhewn building stone set in mortar, but not laid in regular courses. It may appear as the outer surface of a wall or may fill the core of a wall which is faced with unit masonry such as brick or cut stone....

 (mainly gritstone
Gritstone
Gritstone or Grit is a hard, coarse-grained, siliceous sandstone. This term is especially applied to such sandstones that are quarried for building material. British gritstone was used for millstones to mill flour, to grind wood into pulp for paper and for grindstones to sharpen blades. "Grit" is...

) and dressed with freestone. The nave measures 44 feet 9 inches long by 15 feet 6 inches wide (13.6 by 4.7 m) and the chancel measures 32 feet 9 inches long by 20 feet 6 inches (10 by 6.25 m) wide. The nave has three bays, and the chancel at the east end of the nave has two bays; it is slightly wider than the nave. The nave and the chancel have external buttress
Buttress
A buttress is an architectural structure built against or projecting from a wall which serves to support or reinforce the wall...

es.

Internally, the chancel arch dates from the 13th century. It is 12 feet (3.7 m) wide and 19 feet (5.8 m) from the floor to the top of the arch; the supporting pillars are 10 feet (3 m) tall. There are windows from the early 16th century in the chancel, with the large east window in Perpendicular style (in contrast to the rest of the church, which is mainly in Decorated style). It has five ogee
Ogee
An ogee is a curve , shaped somewhat like an S, consisting of two arcs that curve in opposite senses, so that the ends are parallel....

-headed lights separated by vertical tracery
Tracery
In architecture, Tracery is the stonework elements that support the glass in a Gothic window. The term probably derives from the 'tracing floors' on which the complex patterns of late Gothic windows were laid out.-Plate tracery:...

, and measures 10 inch at its widest point by 14 inch at its tallest. Unlike most of the other windows in the church, it contains coloured glass. A smaller window in the north wall also dates from this time, and has a square frame containing two lights; a matching window was added in the 19th century in the opposite wall. The other windows in the church are from the 19th century in various designs. One window, in the north wall of the nave, has had stained glass added as a memorial to two local residents who died in the 1990s.

The entrance is through a porch (probably dating from the 16th century) on the south side of the building, at the west end of the nave. At the west end of the roof, which is made of slate
Slate
Slate is a fine-grained, foliated, homogeneous metamorphic rock derived from an original shale-type sedimentary rock composed of clay or volcanic ash through low-grade regional metamorphism. The result is a foliated rock in which the foliation may not correspond to the original sedimentary layering...

, there is an ornate bellcote for one bell (added by Kennedy). There are plain iron crosses on top of the porch and the chancel. Inside, the rafters and truss
Truss
In architecture and structural engineering, a truss is a structure comprising one or more triangular units constructed with straight members whose ends are connected at joints referred to as nodes. External forces and reactions to those forces are considered to act only at the nodes and result in...

es of the roof are exposed. The pews and choir stalls were added in the 19th century. The nave has a brass memorial to a former Chancellor of Bangor Cathedral
Bangor Cathedral
Bangor Cathedral is an ancient place of Christian worship situated in Bangor, Gwynedd, north-west Wales. It is dedicated to its founder, Saint Deiniol....

, William Morgan (died 1713), his wife and son. There are other memorials inside the church, including one for those from the parish who died during the First World War.

The gritstone circular font
Baptismal font
A baptismal font is an article of church furniture or a fixture used for the baptism of children and adults.-Aspersion and affusion fonts:...

, at the west end, dates from the 12th century, and has six decorative panels. It is one of a group of fonts in north-west Wales using interlace (a medieval decorative style) showing links to Irish and Norse artistic traditions; other similar fonts in Anglesey are found at St Ceinwen's, Cerrigceinwen, St Peter's, Newborough and St Beuno's, Trefdraeth
St Beuno's Church, Trefdraeth
St Beuno's Church, Trefdraeth is a medieval parish church, in Anglesey, north Wales. Although one 19th-century historian stated that the first church on this location was established in 616, no part of any structure from that time survives; the oldest parts of the present building date from the...

. One author says that the patterns on the fonts at Llangristiolus and St Beuno's Church, Pistyll (in the nearby county of Gwynedd
Gwynedd
Gwynedd is a county in north-west Wales, named after the old Kingdom of Gwynedd. Although the second biggest in terms of geographical area, it is also one of the most sparsely populated...

) seem "closely linked" to patterns on one of the stone crosses at St Seiriol's Church, Penmon.

Assessment

The church has national recognition and statutory protection from alteration as it has been designated as a Grade II* listed building – the second-highest (of three) grade of listing, designating "particularly important buildings of more than special interest". It was given this status on 30 January 1968, and has been listed because it is a medieval church that, unusually for Anglesey, dates substantially from the 12th and 13th centuries. Cadw
Cadw
-Conservation and Protection:Many of Wales's great castles and other monuments, such as bishop's palaces, historic houses, and ruined abbeys, are now in Cadw's care. Cadw does not own them but is responsible for their upkeep and for making them accessible to the public...

 (the Welsh Assembly Government
Welsh Assembly Government
The Welsh Government is the devolved government of Wales. It is accountable to the National Assembly for Wales, the legislature which represents the interests of the people of Wales and makes laws for Wales...

 body responsible for the built heritage of Wales and the inclusion of Welsh buildings on the statutory lists) also notes the "fine 16th-century rebuilding of the chancel" and the chancel window. The chancel arch has been described (in a 2009 guide to the buildings of north-west Wales) as the best such arch in the region, and the "fine" east window as "almost too big to fit" in the wall.

The 19th-century antiquarian Angharad Llwyd
Angharad Llwyd
Angharad Llwyd was a Welsh antiquary and a prizewinner at the National Eisteddfod of Wales.She was born at Caerwys in Flintshire, the daughter of Rev. John Lloyd, himself a noted antiquary. Her essay entitled Catalogue of Welsh Manuscripts, etc. in North Wales won a prize at the Welshpool...

 described the church as "a spacious structure, exhibiting some excellent architectural details, and decorated with an east window, of good design, enriched with tracery." Writing in 1846 (before Kennedy's restoration work in 1852), the clergyman and antiquarian Harry Longueville Jones
Harry Longueville Jones
-Life:Jones was the son of Edward Jones by Charlotte Elizabeth Stephens, was born in Piccadilly, London, in 1806. His father was second son of Captain Thomas Jones of Wrexham, who adopted the additional name of Longueville on succeeding to a portion of the Longueville estates in Shropshire. Jones...

 noted a wooden gallery at the west end, above the font, inscribed RICHARDUS DE GREY FECIT 1778. LAUS DEO. He described the chancel arch as displaying "workmanship of good character."

The Welsh politician and church historian Sir Stephen Glynne
Sir Stephen Glynne, 9th Baronet
Sir Stephen Richard Glynne, 9th Baronet was a Welsh landowner and Conservative Party politician. He is principally remembered as an assiduous antiquary and student of British church architecture...

visited the church in 1849. He wrote that it was a "fair specimen of the better sort of Anglesey village church". The nave and chancel were "of good proportions", with the chancel "properly distinguished and developed". He also said that the chancel arch was "of considerable elegance, unusual in North Wales, having excellent moulding and clustered shafts which have a Middle Pointed character."

External links

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