Get the biggest stories sent straight to your inbox Sign up for regular updates and breaking news from WalesOnline Thank you for subscribing We have more newsletters Show me See our privacy notice Invalid Email

As a retired farmer well into his 80s, Maurice Trumper is a straight-talking man who doesn’t elaborate his words.

But when he speaks about his church, he lights up.

Nestled in the heart on Monmouthshire, St Mary’s in Llanfair, Kilgeddin, is unique not only to Wales, but to the UK and beyond with its painted sgraffito walls depicting the nearby Sugar Loaf mountain and River Usk.

And while it doesn’t have a congregation anymore, or a vicar to put it to use, it has Maurice.

(Image: WalesOnline/Rob Browne)

"My family are buried there, some of my family were Christened there," the grandfather-of-five said.

“It’s a little church but it’s quite amazing.

“The churchyard is so peaceful, it’s glorious.

“The sgraffitti panels inside are more or less unique you know for the size of them. That is really the jewel, you know.”

For the last 30 years, Maurice has acted as a volunteer church warden for the Friends of Friendless Churches after attending there as a child.

Now a one-woman organisation, Friends of Friendless Churches was originally founded in 1957 by Welsh journalist and MP Ivor Bulmer-Thomas.

Today they own, restore and care for more than 50 churches in England and Wales to make sure such they are not lost to private developers, or the mercy of the elements.

(Image: WalesOnline/Rob Browne) (Image: WalesOnline/Rob Browne)

In the case of St Mary’s, it means the one-of-a-kind artwork Maurice looks after remains on the wall instead of being transported to an art gallery when the building was threatened with demolition in the 1980s.

For those who are able to visit it now, after organising to pick up the key from Maurice, it means the church is practically the same as it was when that artwork was first created, as a dedication from one vicar to his late wife Rosamund Lindsay after her death in 1885.

Since featuring on a documentary or two, the popular church now receives visitors from all over the world.

(Image: WalesOnline/Rob Browne) (Image: UGC)

Maurice, who will show visiting groups around the building, said: “There were one or two cracks in the walls and it was deemed to be unsafe.

“The Church [in Wales] was adamant it would cost too much. They sent a surveyor up and they estimated it could cost £40,000. We said if the church gives us a chance we’ll find the money but they didn’t want that

“We had a rector for three or four churches in the area and he was very supportive and he got the Victorian society interested. They had a bit of publicity and the Friends of Friendless Churches came and were interested.

“They said, on the provision CADW provided the money, they would take it over….it only cost £16,000.”

Just over 110 miles away at the tip of Pembrokeshire sits a church with an even more extraordinary past.

(Image: Robert Melen) (Image: Robert Melen)

While the church of St Decumanus was once the main place of worship for the residents of Rhoscrowther, the village it served has now been taken over by a sprawling oil refinery.

In 1992 a huge explosion that injured 16 and sent two workmen to a burns unit scared the village enough for oil company Valero to offer to buy all 14 private homes and rehouse 19 families living in council accommodation.

Rumour has it, the force of the explosion lifted the roof of St Decumanus clean off, but such was the skill of the medieval builders that it landed back in place with only minimal damage.

Most went - except for Philip Powell’s parents Albert and Florence.

(Image: Robert Melen)

Now, 27 years later, Philip is back, looking after the church he grew up with.

Philip, who has lost the retinas in both his eyes, said of the explosion: “My brother had a farm and the ceiling came off. A lot of places down here did."

“My nephew was on his bike and when there was the explosion he was blown off his bike. He was only eight or nine.”

Describing his family, Philip, 68, added: “My father was, if you want to call him that, was a Christian.

“He wasn’t a simple man but he was old natured, he had everything he wanted. If he wanted a fish tea, he would get it [from the village]. He didn’t want for anything and I never heard him moan about not having a tuppence.

“That was the only home he had and it was like Buckingham Palace to him. You can imagine how upset he was when they tried to move him.

“My mum and dad wouldn’t move. Why would you want to move from somewhere you could look out of the window with that view?

“If you drive down and look at the view you think how lucky you are. I have been to all different countries and places but Pembrokeshire has got the best coastline in the country.”

(Image: Robert Melen) (Image: Robert Melen)

Today, Philip and his wife Janice live five miles from the former village of Rhoscrowther. The pair have been there for the last nine years after giving up their nursery in Surrey to return to Wales and care for Philip’s mother.

Although he is not deeply religious, the now-defunct church has played an important role in his life, none more so than when he attracted national press attention with his battle to get his father’s funeral held there to the dismay of the Church in Wales.

A newspaper clipping from the Scottish Herald dated 1997 reads: “More than 100 mourners packed inside the tiny 14th century building for prayers and hymns - although Anglican church authorities refused to officiate.

“The ceremony, conducted by an undertaker, came at the end of a bizarre confrontation between relatives of deceased churchgoer Albert Powell, 80, and the Church in Wales which three years ago formally closed St Decumanus in the dying village of Rhoscrowther on the Pembrokeshire coast

“After failing to persuade the local vicar at Angle to re-open the church for his father’s funeral, elder son Philip, 46, staged a protest vigil outside the locked church.

“Early yesterday he gained entry to the building and placed his father’s coffin, topped with a spray of pink carnations, in the porch.

“He vowed to hold a service himself if the church would not.”

(Image: Robert Melen)

A few doors down from Philip lives history buff, and friend, Paul Nicholls.

Together, the pair look after the church for the Friends of Friendless Churches after the charity took ownership of the building in 2005, and for the visitors who travel hundreds of miles to appreciate the building, their relatives and loved-ones once devoutly attended.

Once a week or so, Paul will go down and play the building’s organ to the rows of empty pews to make sure it is still in working order.

With a mother who was the last organist at Coventry Cathedral before it was bombed, it’s an instrument he has grown up with.

(Image: Robert Melen)

Paul, 70, said: “There’s not another organ like it in Wales. It’s got a connection with the civil war, part of it appears to go back to the Battle of Hastings.

"It’s a bellows organ, do you remember the ones that have a handle to pump it? This has been electrified so you still have to play it, if you don’t the bellows collapse.”

He added: “When Coventry Cathedral was bombed in the war the last organist was my mother. She was the organist and she was a singer. For the end of World War Two there was a concert in the Royal Albert Hall and she was a solo singer, she sang for the king.

“We used to tour around the country and anywhere that had a church my mother would go in and if no-one was around she would play a boogie. If someone came in she would change to organ music.

“I liked the old buildings, she liked the organs.”

(Image: Robert Melen) (Image: Robert Melen)

As someone keen to share the importance of his church, Paul is quick to mention St Decumanus is one of two churches dedicated to the Pembrokeshire saint of the same name who sailed away to live a hermit’s life on Exmoor.

After landing near Dunster in Somerset, St Decumanus lived the life of a hermit up to a supposed martyrdom in 706 when he was beheaded with a spade.

Within minutes Paul can also tell you the dates of each of the church’s windows and his theories about where a hidden crypt lies with the church’s original glass panes.

He said: “Cromwell came down when Henry VIII sent him to destroy everything that was Christian. They destroyed church windows, they took down the crosses - everything the crusaders brought back from the Holy Lands were destroyed as they didn’t want people worshipping other gods.

“When the churches knew Cromwell was coming down they took the windows out and placed them in graves and mausoleums and buried them up. Years later people have gone in to renovate and found the windows.

“We think there’s one under the church. We have no idea where it is but there’s a hole that doesn’t relate to anything else that we think is an air vent into the crypt.”

(Image: Robert Melen)

While Paul’s interest lies in the past, Philip prefers to talk of the church’s future rather than the demise of the village around it.

His concerns lie with what could be done to bring the building back to use, and his concerns over solar panels coming to the area to swallow the countryside surrounding it.

He said: “I think there’s churches that need to be used. You have got to get the young people in these buildings.

“I’m [nearly] 69 otherwise I would draw them in in the summer doing various things. I would take a few pews out and put in some tables. We have got all these coastal paths and it would be handy for people to have a cup of tea and a sandwich.

“You don’t need to start frying chips to make a couple of bob for everyone.”

Back in Monmouthshire, St Jerome’s Church in Llangwm Uchaf is almost like a family member to 63-year-old Lyn Savage.

(Image: http://friendsoffriendlesschurches.org.uk/)

As a child it was her playground, and later in life the place where her husband Bill proposed by candlelight. When they married, Lyn planned her wedding dress to match the colours of Mary’s dress in the church's unusual stained glass window.

When the Church in Wales opted to keep the nearby St John’s church open over St Jerome’s, when faced with a dwindling congregation, Lyn was naturally devastated to see the last service take place in the 12th century building.

As it turns out, it was the best thing that could have happened to it.

(Image: Lyn Savage)

Lyn, who lives only yards away from the church, said: “The house has been in my family since 1908. My father was born here and I was born here. We were the wardens of the church.

“It was my playground really. We used to have a milk round when I was a little girl, four or five, and they took me up there and I would play with the bullrushes.

“My grandparents in fact were Welsh Baptists. From their point of view they didn’t use the church that much but since it was on their doorstep my grandmother went to the baptist service and then would go to the Christian one.”

Lyn, who runs a holiday home in her retirement, added: “I met Bill in 1996 and on Christmas Eve, 1997, we were visiting my mum. He said he needed to go to the church - it was blowing a gale - and I was thinking it was something religious just for him.

“He went up there, produced a candle, sat on the step and proposed to me. He gave me my ring in candlelight. That was quite a surprise. My dress was the same colours as the stained glass window of Mary.”

(Image: http://friendsoffriendlesschurches.org.uk/)

Like many, Lyn has seen first-hand the number of church-goers around her dwindle and die.

But while the church isn’t in constant use, the memories that surround it are far from gone.

She said: “If you got married they would barricade you in and you had to throw pennies out. The pennies would be given to the local children.

“When I was a child, maybe my perception was that it was greater, but my perception was it was full on high days or holy days and it can sit around 60 to 80 people. By the time I came back the congregation was about 15, 16.

“There was a big debate and village hall meetings about which church [to keep]. I wanted it to be St Jerome’s that kept going but at the end of the day the consensus was to keep St John’s.

“At the beginning I was really upset as I thought it wasn’t going to be a proper church but it was the best thing that could have happened to it.”

(Image: http://friendsoffriendlesschurches.org.uk/)

Like all the churches under the Friends of Friendless Church’s care, St Jerome’s is one of a kind with its magnificent red and green wooden 15th century screen preserved by architect John Seddon and brought back to life.

If you look closely, you can also see an early carved head of a Green Man in the building and a small wooden toad on the screen - a sign that those building it weren't completely convinced with the new religion they were being told about.

Now, it is Lyn’s job to organise a deep clean for the church when it needs it, and to clear up the bat droppings that come with a building of its age.

Like all the volunteers behind such important buildings, it's a task she's happy to do to keep it going.

Behind the massive scale of Friends of Friendless Churches lies director Rachel Morley.

Along with one part time staff member, it’s an enormous task for one person to take on - especially when they will adopt one or two churches in Wales every year.

And while they may receive £120,000 from the Church in Wales, and funding from CADW, it doesn’t stretch far when you take into account that current plans to repair one roof on a Caerleon church will cost £90,000 alone.

Thankfully, donations and memberships throw a lifeline for them to carry on what they do.

(Image: Morley von Sternberg @morleyvon)

Rachel, who is based in London but will visit the Friends churches whenever she can, said: “We are not religious, we just think these buildings are important.

“They have witnessed the landscape, some buildings are so old we can’t put an earliest date on it. Lots are on Pre-Christian burials and the churchyards are totally ancient.

“I think there’s such a huge legacy there you can’t lose it. They are preserved through buildings, these stories and people are remembered through them.

“By turning them into houses you are cutting off parts of the community. They are national, cultural assets. In Wales there are only a very little amount of churches, there are 1,300 compared to 16,000 in England.

“Some churches are desperately remote and there’s no-one to use them and they will get a few people a year to visit. Then there are churches which bring the community together, there is a church in the Brecon Beacons that has a folk festival every August.

“We have supper clubs that go round the community and they will have desert and drinks in the church at the end.”

(Image: Rachel Morley)

A plaster conservationist by trade, Rachel had big boots to fill when she took on the director role from Matthew Saunders after his 27 years in the job.

Luckily, she fell head over heels for the role and the churches she visits every month on her travels.

She said: “I love history and looking around buildings. I visited the Pitts River Museum in Oxford which is about anthropology and the cabinet which I loved the most was a cabinet about things that people had found in their houses. There was a bull’s heart stabbed with black nails to protect them against witches which had been stuffed up the chimney and little shoes under the hearth. All these things tell you how people were using buildings and that’s what I love about churches.

“Before I started this job I had no idea how rich the architecture of churches was. I think from the outside they all look the same and unless you go inside you don’t realise how amazing, how different, how ancient, they are.”

Speaking to Rachel, her enthusiasm for each church under her care, and the stories behind it, is infectious.

Out of many, her favourite in Wales is St Baglan’s church on the Menai Strait, shrouded in echoes of the Mabinogion tales.

After a conversation with Ifor Williams, a volunteer of 15 years living in the village of Llanfaglan, it’s easy to understand how people can fall in love with the 13th century church overlooking Carnaerfon Bay.

According to the retired technical support officer from Bangor University, it’s a place where people come to sit and “for the soul to rest” - or “lle i enaid cael llonydd” in Welsh.

(Image: Alex Ramsay)

Ifor, who lives a 20-minute walk across the fields to the church, said: "My interest really is the community I live in, the history of the community and Welsh history in general.

"I look at the history from my doorstep and spread it out throughout Wales and the rest of the world. And this was a golden opportunity for me.

"I meet people by accident from all over the world. I show them everything."

Such is Ifan’s enthusiasm for the church that he knows every detail and story from the church’s winding past.

With views to Snowdon and Santes Dwynwen’s Llandwyn Island, the site has come a long way from its roots as an early iron age settlement.

Now, thanks to a Facebook group, the history enthusiast is able to share his findings, and people’s connection with the church to people all over the world.

(Image: Ifor Williams)

Ifor said: "The alter-end of the church was rebuilt in the early 19th century, they had some stones left over from it by the looks of it and at that time they also built the porch.

“A chap in Australia saw a picture of the porch and then built a replica of it on his house. He just saw it in a book by the previous [Friends of Friendless Church] director Matthew Saunders. I made contact with him so he also sees what goes on in the church."

Despite being a bracing walk down a narrow track from the small community, St Baglan’s was, and to some extent still is, at the heart of the village despite having no working electricity, heating or water.

Since the church closed to its congregation, it is still used now and again to bring people together.

(Image: Alex Ramsay)

Ifor, who also runs a historical association in Llanfaglan, said: "During the 1840s they rebuilt the churches, knocked them down and rebuilt them on the same site.

“Here they built a new church in Llanfaglan itself, not on the site of this church, so we had two churches and the old was left alone.

“It was easier for people to get to the new church than the old one because the way of life changed.

“Everyone went there but they had one service on the first of every August in the old church.

“Buses used to come down from the villages around there and the churchyard itself was full of people attending the service as well. They would hold services outside if it was a nice day.

“We had a service there a few years ago, a bilingual service in Welsh and Breton because Caernarfon is twinned with a town in Brittany. A young man from Brittany sang there and it was the first time I heard the acoustics of the church...they were really really fantastic."

Like for Rachel, and his fellow volunteers - it's a love of the community and the sense of belonging it creates that keeps Ifor motivated to carry on his duties.

He said: “You don’t need to be religious to appreciate churches, it’s history, it’s architecture, it’s a way of life in the community.

“Today it’s all iPads and computers and people today have lost touch with the land. I think that causes a lot of problems.”