St Brynach - Feast Day 7th April
- RevShirleyMurphy
- 3 days ago
- 5 min read
Not too much is known about St Brynach and what is known is questionable on the accuracy as it was written in the 12th century. He is a sixth century saint who was born in Ireland around 500.
Saint Brynach died on 7 April, on which day his feast is celebrated. His church, beside the River Nevern, is his lasting memorial.
The wealth of local details makes it almost certain that the author was a native of Cemais in north Pembrokeshire. The 'life' reveals nothing of the saint's antecedents, but Welsh tradition remembers him as Brynach Wyddel (the Irishman). After a pilgrimage to Rome and a sojourn of some years in Brittany, Brynach landed at Milford in south Pembrokeshire.
He travelled from there to Llanboidy and stayed in a cowshed after being denied lodgings by the locals. He built a hermitage at Llanfyrnach but left after he was the victim of a spear attack by a woman who was upset that he rejected her advances.
He is said to have moved from there to Pont-Faen but was ‘driven away by demons.’
He tried to build a church at Llwyn Henllan on the River Nevern but locals are said to have stolen his wood. It is stated that an angel appeared and told him that the area was unsuitable for him so he moved to Nevern.
He moved thence to a spot on the river Gwaun, and then on to the banks of the river Nevern.
He seemed to be more welcome in Nevern as he is believed to have introduced agriculture to the locals and taught them to yoke wild stags to the plough and milk the hinds.
He built his church using wood chopped from nearby trees around 540. Clether, the king at the time, renounced his claim to the throne and gave St Brynach all his lands. Clether’s 20 sons became the first disciples of the saint and the monastery that developed around his church.
His final settlement was made at the modern Nevern on the banks of the river Caman, a tributary of the Nevern. The lord of that country, whose name was Clechre, surrendered possession of part of the district to Brynach, and there the latter remained, leading a life of rigorous asceticism. The majority of his foundations were in this region of north Pembrokeshire, and a cross standing in Nevern churchyard is still known (apparently without justification) as S. Brynach's Cross.
St Brynach’s Church in Nevern is not the original church but it does stand on the site of the ancient wooden one.
A small stone church was built on the site at some point following the wooden original one and during the Viking invasions in the 800s, the church had to be rebuilt a couple of times.
Nevern was also a popular stop for pilgrims on their way to St Davids during this period, where they would pray at the Pilgrims Cross above the village and would stay at the church and castle overnight.
When the Normans invaded in the 11th century, they rebuilt the church, making it unusually large for a small village as they initially planned to make Nevern their base in the region, but decided to set this up in Newport instead.
The current church’s foundations are those that were built by the Normans, with the oldest part being the tower which was built in 1380.
The nave and chancel were built around 1420-1450. The annual value of the church was £16, more than double the other churches in the area.
In 1377, the church was sold to St David’s Cathedrals and ministers would therefore be from the attached College of St Mary. The church became Anglican after centuries of Catholicism brought in by the Normans when Henry VIII got his way with the abjuration of the rule of Rome. But the church continued to carry on as it had before as the pilgrimage tradition was too ingrained to be abandoned.
After the Civil War, the church was the biggest indoor gathering place in the parish and became a hub for playing games and hosting stalls rather than as a church.
The church’s revival as just that came in the 18th century with the arrival of 18-year-old David Griffiths. He arrived at Nevern in 1768, was ordained and married into the Bowen family. He became the vicar in 1782 and remained in the position for 42 years.
A Methodist chapel was attached to the church (now the Village Hall) and seats were introduced into the church’s nave.
In 1864 alongside many other churches, St Brynach went under some renovation turning it from a barn-like structure to neo-Gothic arches and wall plaque decorations. What is seen inside the church today is that of the 1864 design and was designed by R.J Withers.
A campaign has been successful in restoring the 10 peal bells in the bell tower, with one being dedicated to crime writer Agatha Christie. The bells rang in 2021 for the first time in 125 years.
Before the 125-year silence, there were six full circle bells which were cast in 1763 by Thomas Rudhall.
St Brynach’s Church is also home to the bleeding yew, a yew tree thought to be around 700 years old which consistently ‘bleeds’ red sap.
The saint is most associated, however, with the village of Nevern (Nanyfer in Welsh), Pembrokeshire, where his hermitage was located. Along with St. David's Cathedral (St. David's, Wales) this is one of the earliest sites in Britain used continuously for Christian worship. (Wales remained Christian after England was occupied by pagan Anglo-Saxons.)
The church of St. Brynach in the village is believed to stand on the site of the saint's hermitage. While the current church building is of more recent construction, the antiquity of the site is indicated by the presence of a number of ancient inscribed stones in the churchyard and the church itself dating from the time of the saint. The Vortiper stone, which stands just outside the church entrance and has inscriptions in both Latin and Irish Ogham scripts, has been dated to c.466 to c.533; another dual-script stone has been re-used as a lintel inside the church, and at least one more Latin-inscribed stone can be seen on the outer fabric of the structure.
The story associating the magnificent Celtic cross outside the church with Ss. Brynach and David (David is said to have carried the cross to Brynach as a gift), is, however, inaccurate as the cross dates to sometime between the 11th-13th centuries—at least six centuries after the saints.
St. Brynach himself lived an austere life of constant fasting and prayer. Wild beasts became tame for the saint, and his holiness was so great that he communed with angels on the summit of nearby Carn Ingli, the Mountain of Angels (also the site of a pre-Christian hillfort), which dominates the local landscape. A twelfth century hagiography, the Vita Sancti Bernachius exists, written by an anonymous author in the district of Cemaes, which includes Nevern.
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