Name: | Llandeilo Fawr | CISP No: | LDEIO |
Place: | Llandeilo Fawr | Grid Ref: | SN 6290 2220 (GB) |
Parish: | Llandeilo Fawr (Urban) (Llandeilo Fawr) | Stones: | 1 |
County: | Carmarthenshire (Caerfyrddin) , Wales | Saint(s): | Teilo |
Site Type: | ecclesiastical |
The churchyard of Llandeilo Fawr sits to one side of the Roman road which runs through the middle of the present town. For a photo of the site, and some of the surrounding area see James/1992, 75, Fig. 8.13; for a map showing the site in relation to other similar sites see James/1992, 63.
Butler/1979, 460--62, has argued that Llandeilo Fawr was an important early church site on the basis of its curvilinear enclosure(s?).One of these enclosures is shown to be no older than the 19th century by James/1992, 74--75, and Thomas/1994, 104--106 lists Llandeilo Fawr as an `early church site'.
Davies/1978, chapter 8 discusses the evidence for Llandeilo Fawr as a major episcopal church from at least the 7th-9th centuries. Moreover, the Lichfield Gospels were housed at Llandeilo Fawr as shown by the charters entered into its margins. These marginalia, recently studied by Jenkins/Owen/1983 and Jenkins/Owen/1985, show Llandeilo Fawr as a prominent, landowning ecclesiastical centre. Jones/1994, has argued that these documents relate to early medieval gold-mining as they overlap with the Roman gold mines at Dolaucothi.
Three other pieces of early medieval stonework also attest to the importance of this site, ECMW nos. 154-156.