ON August 18, Gerallt Nash spoke to Dinas Powis Probus members about the rescue from dereliction and re-erection of St Teilo’s Church at the Folk Museum of Wales at St Fagans.

Gerallt was formally senior curator at The National Historic Museum, Cardiff and was deeply involved with the recreation of the late mediaeval church.

St Teilo’s, also known as Llandeilo Tal-y Bont, was built on marshy ground in a bend of the river Loughor in the seventh century, possibly as the last place of prayer for pilgrims on the road to St David’s before the dangerous crossing over the tidal river.

The church was originally of Catholic denomination, and was gradually enlarged in phases up to the early 16th century.

Unfortunately, many of the wall paintings, stained glass windows and other embellishments were destroyed around 1535-36 during King Henry’s reign when he broke away from Rome and the church then became Protestant. The building was abandoned in 1850 as the local population declined.

When the building was offered to St Fagans in 1984 there was no roof, or furniture such as pews remaining and all the paintings had been covered in white-wash. Work began, chiefly by students of the University Archaeology department, to carefully scrape away the wall surfaces to uncover and record the hidden paintings, patterns and scripts going back four or five centuries.

All the stonework was photographed and the stones carefully numbered so that they could be re-erected in their original positions. The whole building was then taken to St Fagans to await re-erection.

After the fabric was in place, work began to decorate the walls in their original colours and patterns. An original painting of St Catherine was recreated in its original form, showing the spiked wheel on which she was tortured to death and the sword she was holding to signify death triumphing over a heretic.

The museum carpenter carved new oak roof trusses but the original trusses were reclaimed where possible, and painters recreated the gilding and gold leaf highlights on the rood screens and the like. A 14th century carving of the crucifixion was found in the rubble and re-carved by the museum craftsman.

Gerallt also gave a brief history of St Teilo’s life. He was born at Penally Pembrokeshire, around 500AD.

He was the appointed Bishop of Llandaff and founded the first church there, and the church at Llandeilo Fawr. In 549, he moved to Dol in Brittany to escape the yellow plague spreading across Europe. Whilst there he planted fruit groves, they are still known as the Groves of St Teilo, and claimed a grant of land offered by a local lord, the boundaries of which, it is said, were set by how far he could ride during the hours of darkness on the back of a stag.

In 554 he returned to Llandeilo Fawr and died around 560. According to legend, upon death his body became three and relics now appear in several places, including three churches in Brittany.

The vote of thanks was given by Peter Hilary-Jones who complimented Gerallt not only on the content of his talk but also on the technical presentation using computer generated graphics.