Welsh Remote Churches - Ysbyty Cynfyn Mystery Cache

The word Ysbyty, Welsh for hospital, originates from the Latin term for Hospice ...Hospitium and it is believed that the Knights of St John of Jerusalem or Hospitallers who possessed this area in medieval times had a hospice here. The Knights Hospitallers were founded during the Crusades in the 12th century and were dedicated to providing places of shelter for pilgrims travelling to Christian shrines. This was one in a series of hospices along the pilgrims' road to Strata Florida and onto St Davids in Pembrokeshire, the ecclesiastical capital of Wales. Three pilgrimages to St. David's were considered equal to one pilgrimage to Jerusalem.

Ysbytty Cynfyn church was once a chapel of ease to Llanbadarn Fawr church, itself once a cathedral, and is of sufficient importance enough to be marked by both our earliest cartographers... its antiquity is clearly depicted in both John Speed’s map of 1610 and Jensen’s map of 1646.
Meyrick notes the large stones in 1810 and also mentions that the pews were regularly put outside to enable traditional, all night wrestling bouts and weight lifting to take place within the church as an annual festival. The Methodist revival of the 18th century helped to put an end to such activities. It is recorded that the first Methodist to preach in the area spoke from the churchyard wall here in the 1740's.
The church was rebuilt in 1827 on the site of the Medieval building and possibly on the grounds of a former Bronze Age stone circle, a 'Druidic Temple".

This small churchyard has a couple of interesting features...
First of which are the five enigmatic standing stones. Two of the stones now act as posts for the gate leading into the churchyard, another two are set into the church wall itself. The tallest of the stones is in the North of the churchyard and stands over 3 metres high. It is believed that this stone may be from the Bronze Age stone circle and set in its original position and is mentioned in a description of the churchyard in 1804. There has been long debate about whether these stones are the in situ remains of a prehistoric stone circle or just re-used, re-positioned stones.

Secondly is the grave of the first recorded birth of quadruplets, born at Nantysyddion, who all died of Typhoid Fever in their first month of infancy in 1856. A year of much sadness and bereavement for the Hughes family when you read the graves next them and see that their brother Hugh and sister Hannah also died along with their Father all in the same month! Then their mother committed suicide and as a result was not buried in the church yard with her family, but outside the churchyard wall nearby.

A visit to the church and the Parson’s Bridge waterfalls to the east in the Rheidol Gorge was an essential item on the itinerary of late 18th and 19th century tourists to north Ceredigion.

Prior to the Great War, land across the road to the church was used by the military for summer camps in close proximity to the Cambrian Mountains. In July 1912, it was the site of the 18th Infantry Brigade Camp, most of the Brigade became casualties in the first few months of the war. Local men who fell during World War Two 1939 -1945 are commemorated on a small brass engraved plaque, which is within St John's Church.

Watch out for a new series on Welsh TV in 2016 of Weatherman Walking with Derek Brockway...Derek and his camera crew was seen filming at the church and in the area during May 2015.