Site: Steynton

Name:Steynton CISP No:STNTN
Place:Steynton Grid Ref:SM 9180 780 (GB)   Map
Parish:Steynton Stones:1
County:Pembrokeshire (Penfro) , Wales Saint(s):Cewydd
Site Type:ecclesiastical

Site Notes

Caroe/1917, 123, provides an extensive account of the church.

RCAHMW/1925, 390: `In 1851 Sir Stephen Glynne described this church as of `coarse and rude architecture, with the ordinary amount of mutilation and destruction of original windows'. A restoration in 1882 made matters worse, the body of the building being `almost swept out of historical existence by a tornado of change. Excepting mutilated remnants of the main wall and the tower, itself in part falsified, there have survived out of the past only three small windows in the side walls of the chancel. Of the north entrance the north door only remains. Every other feature has been wiped out!' (Notes on the Architectural History of Steynton Church, W. D. Caröe, F.S.A., 1916, p. 3).

The main structure (including the first 20 feet of the tower or thereabouts, and the font) may date from the early 13th century...The restoration, however unfortunate, revealed interesting relics, which are thus decribed (Arch. Camb., 1896, V, xiii, 354):--

(i) A human skull, three horses' skulls, and a pike-head, found under the second chancel step. The present location of the iron pike-head is unknown.

(ii) In each pillar of the arcade was found a cavity, and in each cavity a human thigh bone. These were remains, as much probably of viking warriors as of British saints. The cavities were about 4 feet from the ground.

(iii) A handsome 13th-century window was disclosed in the south wall; also the broken pieces of a font of the same period, which has been repaired.

(iv) The foundation of a smaller church consisting only of the nave was uncovered.

(v) The stones of `two large cromlechs' (? cists) in the centre of the nave, about 4 feet from the surface; they were more than 5 feet in length'.

References

Stones