10. Ceirchiog - Betws y Grog- 'The Holy Rood'

Introduction

This should be a site of almost unpeakable sadness. The ghost of a church that only still exists because of the solidity of its boundary. Broken monuments become its own monument and nature reclaims its structure.

It's a remote and quite beautiful setting Go and see it, there is power and drama in these old stones...

A Visit

Holy rood is sightable from the bridge over the A55 as you drive away from Dothan/Engedi, there are two roundabouts and if you look into the fields to your left from the second you can see its walls. There is no real parking for this site, grab a space flanking the gate into the field shortly after the second roundabout, but please, don't block it as this is a working farm. Backtrack a few yards to a stile that leads you into the field. Cross this and walk across the field keeping close to the fence to your left. Keep left when you reach a small stream/hedge and you can slither your way across a muddy traverse to emerge in an overgrown section dominated by a ladder stile. Be very careful crossing this stile and preferably bring a pair of gardening gloves to be quite safe of the thorns.

Once you cross the collapsed gate and enter the churchyard you reach a place that should feel melacholic. Very little remains of the chuch itself, just a collection of stumped stones mark its foundations. A collapsed cross marks the spot and you find yourself surrounded by a scattering of decaying burial monuments and fallen trees. It's quietly bleak and you get the feeling of having just ticked off a place to visit, but stop and look around. Peace. Trees. Then realise you're in an old place and drink it in. this was the centre of a community, this was the centre of their world. Suddenly it feels human, now it feels like a holy site.

Very little history is known of the church, a gazeteer published in 1833 describes it as 'very small and very ancient' and describes the parish it served as a curacy attached to the church at Llanbeulan (No.9 on the trail). It's name Ceirchiog being derived from the Welsh name for oats which were the chief crop grown here. The parish must have had some importance however as it returned a representative to the Anglesey Poor Law Board. What is known is that the church closed in 1834 when the parish was amalgamated with Llechylched, and the Holy Trinity in Bryngwran became the parish church.