Beloved Welsh church faces uncertain future as charity renews call for help

Nation.Cymru Staff

A heritage charity has renewed its appeal for help saving a historic Welsh church, with around £650,000 needed to rescue the deteriorating building.

Friends of Friendless Churches, an independent, non-denominational charity that works to repair and restore historic churches, first called for donations for St Tyfi’s, or Llandyfeisant Church, in June 2026.

Located in Dinefwr Park, the church closed for regular worship in 1961 and is now Category 3 ‘At Risk’, “meaning its condition is worsening and the church is ‘vulnerable’, suffering from severe decay of the roof timbers, invasive vegetation and defective drainage”, according to the charity.

Though the church’s deterioration continues, with severe rot to the purlins, pervasive damp, and a fungal outbreak, “against all odds” it still stands and is currently supported by four local men who make up Friends of Llandyfeisant Church.

Friends of Friendless Churches aim to work with these caretakers, take the church into their ownership, and “make it safe for people to use and enjoy for decades to come”.

However, the charity estimates the cost of all necessary repairs would be in the region of £650,000, and as a grant application on behalf of the church failed, they have turned to the public to help raise the money.

Now, with half a million pounds still to raise, they’ve renewed their call for donations, with Chair of the Friends of Llandyfeisant Church, Philip England, providing a tour.

He explains: “St. Tyfi’s was built by the Dinefwr family. We’ve spoken to people in the local community who remember coming to services here before the church closed in the 1960s.

“The carriage with Lord and Lady Dinefwr would pull up, all the estate workers would be queuing outside, and as Lord and Lady Dinefwr took their seats in here, the rest of the estate workers would join them…

“Sitting on the edge of the floodplain and with Castle Wood surrounding us on the edge of the Dinefwr estate, the setting is really remarkable from so many standpoints, landscape, nature, wildlife.”

Phil also shared that, in the 1980s, the church came under the care of the local wildlife trust who used it as a visitor centre and completed work to weatherproof the structure.

But, as Phil says, this work was not completed in “the way that in the long term was sympathetic to a building of this age.”

 

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The church is currently owned by The Church in Wales and leased to The Welsh Wildlife Trust, who also manage Castle Woods and own Castell Dinefwr.

It was originally offered to the Trust in 2009 for £50,000, though rather than purchase the church they now hold a rolling contract until its future can be determined, Friends of Llandyfeisant explained.

St Tyfi’s dates back to the Middle Ages, first mentioned in the Ecclesiastical Taxation of 1291, and was almost entirely rebuilt in 1875 with its 15th century font and stained glass war memorial moved to St Teilo (who in his lifetime was saint Tyfei’s nephew) in Llandeilo.

The site’s history may stretch back even further, with evidence of Roman activity nearby, including a possible temple discovered beneath the churchyard in 1770 and a hoard of Roman coins found in 1800.

The church’s location was deliberately chosen so it could be seen from the Dinefwr family’s seat at Newton House. The building features stone walls and a slate roof, with exposed timber beams, decorative stonework and a 13th-century window surviving from an earlier structure.

The building was listed at Grade II on 18 March 1988, partly for its “fine steeply sloping burial ground with old headstones”, in which the last Lord Dinefwr was buried in 2012, alongside many of the servants who worked at Newton House.

The church is currently available to visit on community open days, and colourful bunting is strung up from wall-plates inside, “the insistent cheerfulness” of which became a symbol of the church for Friends of Friendless Churches “and its defiance and determination to keep going.”

To donate and help Friends of Friendless Churches take over ownership of St Tyfi’s Llandyfeisant, visit their donation link here.

Formed in 1957 by Welsh journalist and politician Ivor Bulmer-Thomas, Friends of Friendless Churches works with local volunteers and traditional craftspeople to protect churches’ architectural and cultural heritage for future generations.

For more information on their work and the churches they currently own and maintain, visit their site here.