St David Triabad

 

This week  I have jumped a blog to write this one about St David Triabad. The church is the penultimate one in effort to visit the late Phil Jones web page of  the Churches of  the Builth Wells area I have one left to visit apart from sorting out one I thing is wrong The last one I hope will be Brecon Cathedral. Triabad is a little out of the way in the hills, it's also one of the very few Georgian Churches in Wales. The history below was provided by  Karen Coldrick who also provided a couple of photos. Although the church is now redundant the local community are  working hard to keep it as a church

History - It is likely that there has been a church of some sort on the ground currently housing St David’s in Llandulas, Tirabad since 519AD when it was one of 7 Churches founded by St David along the River Irfon. In 1164 the church was given as a Grange to Strata Florida Abbey and in 1766 a ‘new church’ was built by Sackville Gwynne of Glanbran, it is one of very few Georgian Churches in Wales, the church bell, which was originally housed in a small bell tower, is dated 1753. There are 2 ancient yew trees and several graves dating back to the 1700’s in the burial ground. During the 1950’s the village of Tirabad was expanded to accommodate families of foresters who moved in to undertake forestry operations following the 2^nd World War. Over time the Church has been altered and many original features have been lost but it remains a truly special place both historically and in terms of it’s peaceful location.

 Karen Coldrick Provided this photo of St David with some of the local people looking around the church

This is how the church was on my visit. The first thing I noticed was the mark where a porch was removed, In Phill's web page it clearly shows a porch. The photo was taken back in 2003/4 so in the entwining years the porch was removed for some reason. I feel the church lost a bit of itself. On the day in Question I had not expected to find it open but  there was a meeting going on so I did ask if it was OK to get a few photos

Walking around the north side shows the walls grey and the render in need of coat of paint. The original entry door was on this side. The porch that was there is thought to have been added by the Victorians no doubt when the old door was blocked.

The east end wall shows the old stone or slate from which it was built, the white can still be seen

 

The south side which looks similar to the north

Looking at the south west end of the church where you can see the outline of the porch, the ground is also very soft on this side

You can see quite a few headstones in the churchyard, one thing I noticed was the churchyard has a bad ground elder problem

the ground looks to have been cleared not so long ago

Collage of the more interesting headstones and memorials

I was plagued by the sun which caused the flares in the photos on the north side

I should have put a filter on for them

 

This is how the church looks when you walk in, my thanks to Karen for supplying the photo

The altar and east window

over to the north side are memorials

More of  which can be seen on the south side

Not seen any painted pulpits before. I did not take a photo from it was there were a few people at the back discussing the church

The memorials all date back to the 1700's

This one from 1819 with a  couple of candle holders on top

The font I suspect is Georgian

I will leave you with this photo of the east window with the cross behind the altar

Till Next time I wish you all a peaceful weekend