It’s hard. The old don’t count for much now. And religion has become rather problematic. The Church seems to be very short of money. So to make an effective plea to help preserve and resuscitate a small unremarkable local church is a bit of a tall order. But this is about preserving and honouring a very special history and remembering a rather particular man.

Two hundred years ago, our local village didn’t really exist. What did exist was a scattering of small settlements which had evolved from the turf and mud huts made by squatters on the wastes and commons. The squatting had been going on since before 1584. This is the first official reference I have found to the so called ‘encroachments’ which at the time the Lord of the Manor (the Duke of Beaufort) was investigating so that he could charge the squatters rent. This process of squatting, followed by the granting of leases, continued for some centuries and no doubt contributed nicely to the current fortunes of the Badminton Estate.

The story of our church begins with a man (above) whose occupation of pedlar and rag collector for the paper mills took him walking for many miles through Monmouthshire. In course of which perambulations he came across these settlements and the squatters, who were mostly now ‘cottagers’. He thought with horror of these poor souls as living ‘in darkness and the shadow of death’ and therefore in dire need of education and religion. Solution: a school. Here is a description of these benighted people:

And, so, just like now, fund raising began. The Duke of Beaufort generously contributed a plot of land and some money, (out of the money he made on those rents, no doubt) and soon James Davies became school master of a small school. The first National School in Wales, free and open to all children in the area.

Alas, in spite of this access to education, James Davies observed that the school children and indeed their parents, were still given to spending the ‘sacred hours’ of Sunday ‘in sports and pastimes’, which were definitely not video games, but regarded with a similar kind of disapproval. It became apparent to the school master that a church was also needed. So he petitioned to convert the school room for use as a chapel, and permission obtained, proceeded at his own expense (£45 – and his salary was £20 per annum) with his own physical effort to make the conversion.

So on the 11^th of March 1829 ‘the room was opened for divine service in the presence of  upwards of two hundred persons, most of them poor cottagers, many of them halt, maimed and decrepit’. Then, nine years later, following further fund raising and building the church was properly consecrated solely as a church, with the addition nearby of a new school and accommodation for the school master. I should add that while it now locally is described as the church I believe it is technically a Chapel of Ease. This church unusually doesn’t align east/west due to this unusual history.

‘The chapel is an unpretending oblong building, having an entrance porch, surmounted by a small tower, in which is suspended one bell. ….At the further extremity stands a small chancel, in half of an hexagonal form, lighted by three windows, and approached through an arch made in the original wall of the building; over the entrance runs a gallery, and the whole is neatly pewed and painted. To those who knew it in its original character of a school-room, it was a matter of great astonishment to see what architectural skill could effect, and how  judiciously the public money had been expended: everyone admired the little chapel’ (pages 60/61 ‘Memoir of Davies of Devauden’) 

It is this chapel which is now in desperate need of help.  The lowest estimate for essential repairs and upgrading is 95 thousand pounds. Or- this will no doubt be its fate:

Local people are begining to do all in their power, in the usual ways to raise these funds. On the 6th of June we will be opening the garden at Veddw is support of these efforts and, most unusually, there will be teas. And other good things, which we will announce nearer the time. Meanwhile if you can help in any way you’ll find the relevant contact here.