History
The church of St. Michael in Cilycwm was probably built in the early 14th century, as it did not appear in the Taxatio Ecclesiastica tax register from 1291, and the first mentions of it were recorded in the second quarter of the 14th century. At that time, it served as a parish within the medieval deanery of Stradtowy. At the end of the 14th century or in the 15th century, a tower was supposedly added to it, and at the turn of the 15th and 16th centuries, it was supposed to have undergone a thorough late Gothic reconstruction, combined with the addition of the aisle. It is possible, however, that despite the early form of the tower, the entire church was then built as a new one, on the site of an older building. In the 17th century, some of the windows and roof trusses in the nave and chancel were replaced, while in the first half of the 18th century the interior was covered with early modern wall polychromes. Victorian repairs were carried out in the 1830s and 1840s, again in 1859, when the roof was replaced, and before 1881. A major renovation of the building took place in 1906.
Architecture
The church at the end of the Middle Ages consisted of a rectangular, five-bay nave, without a chancel separated externally. On the western side of the nave there was a slender tower, erected on a quadrangular base. Its form would indicate an early date of construction, but it was bonded with the nave, so it must have been built at the same time. The church also had a rectangular south aisle of the same width and length as the nave. It was probably built together with the nave, because the pillars separating it were built from scratch, not adapted from the solid wall of the older perimeter wall. The spatial layout of the entire building was typical of churches in Carmarthenshire, fully developed towards the end of the Middle Ages.
Both the nave and the aisle were surrounded on the outside by a batter, typical of Anglo-Norman architecture. It strengthened the peripheral walls, which did not have to support heavy stone vaults and therefore did not require buttresses. The two parts were separated by the above-mentioned five arcades with pointed, strongly chamfered archivolts, set on octagonal pillars. The pillars were made of purple sandstone ashlars and equipped with very narrow capitals and quadrangular plinths. The aisle was covered with a wooden wagon roof at the turn of the 15th and 16th centuries. The nave was originally topped in a similar way or was opened to the roof truss. Lighting was provided by pairs of pointed openings, framed by bent drip mouldings.
The tower, with the exception of the front elevation, was not clasped at the base with a batter with a cornice, an element typical of late medieval church towers in the south-west of Wales. It was also distinguished by the lack of a communication turret, because a spiral staircase, accessible from the outside, was placed in the north-west corner of the nave. However, a finial in the form of a parapet created on corbels protruding from the face of the walls was common. The tower was lit by small openings with segmental heads. Inside the ground floor of the tower, there was a vaulted porch, accessible from the west through a moulded portal with a gable closure.
Current state
Despite early modern and modern transformations or renovations, the church has retained much of its medieval, historic substance, and has not been enlarged by any modern annex. The windows in the nave and aisle were replaced or renewed in the 17th and 19th centuries. Three late Gothic windows have been preserved in the southern wall of the aisle. The windows and entrance portal of the tower, the vault in its ground floor and the arcade under the tower, the entrance portal to the staircase, and the arcades between the nave and aisle are also original. In the southern aisle an octagonal font from the 15th century and a medieval wooden wagon roof from the turn of the 15th and 16th centuries have been preserved (the bosses and longitudinal frames are later additions).
bibliography:
Ludlow N., Carmarthenshire Churches, Church Reports, Llandeilo 2000.
Ludlow N., Carmarthenshire Churches, An Overview of the Churches in Carmarthenshire, Llandeilo 2000.
Salter M., The old parish churches of South-West Wales, Malvern 2003.
The Royal Commission on The Ancient and Historical Monuments and Constructions in Wales and Monmouthshire. An Inventory of the Ancient and Historical Monuments in Wales and Monmouthshire, V County of Carmarthen, London 1917.
Wooding J., Yates N., A Guide to the churches and chapels of Wales, Cardiff 2011.