History
Parish church in Pennard was built in the 12th or 13th century. Due to difficulties in using the building, which was covered with sand from the nearby dunes, the parish was moved inland in the 15th century. A second church was probably built then, using elements from the demolished older one, although the church inland could also have been built as early as the 13th century and then rebuilt in the 15th century.
In the early years of the 12th century, the local parish was donated by the Anglo-Normans to the monastery of St. Taurin in Évreux, who administered it until 1414. It then became royal possession, pursuant to an edict removing the influence of foreign monasteries in England and Wales. In 1441, the church in Pennard, like the church in Llangennith, was donated to Oxford’s All Souls College, which had the right of patronage until 1828.
St. Mary’s Church was renovated in 1847, following the Victorian interest in medieval architectural monuments. It was probably then that neo-Gothic windows with Y tracery were inserted into the nave walls. Further renovations were carried out in the 1890s, first in 1891, then in 1899, when a sacristy and organ annex were built. In the first half of the 20th century, a gallery was inserted inside the nave.
Architecture
The late 15th-century church was similar in size to the older structure on the coast. It featured a rectangular, relatively elongated nave and a narrower, lower, and, above all shorter chancel on the eastern side, also on a rectangular plan. The southern entrance to the nave was sheltered by a simple porch. The western side of the church was crowned by a small, slender tower, partially integrated into the nave. Originally, there were no annexes on the northern façade. The entire structure was orientated toward the cardinal sides of the world.
A set of windows in various shapes provided lighting for the church. Gothic pointed windows and openings with quadrangular surrounds were used, as well as simple quadrangular openings in the tower. The southern wall of the chancel received a pointed window with 13th-century dog-tooth molding on the outer archivolt, likely from the older church. The eastern wall of the chancel, through which most sunlight entered, was distinguished at the turn of the 15th and 16th centuries by a two-light window with cinquefoil tracery in quadrangular frame. On the inside, older, early Gothic columns with moulded capitals were used in its construction.
The church interior was entered through the aforementioned south porch, equipped with a simple, semicircular opening, and then through a pointed portal in the south wall of the nave. Originally, there was also a pointed portal in the north wall of the nave, and in the south wall of the chancel was a portal intended for the priests. Inside, the nave and chancel were connected by a rood arcade without moulding, likely carried over from an older building. Its slightly pointed archivolt was set on two simple and plain impost cornices.
The western tower acquired an unusual form, not only being topped with a battlemented parapet supported by corbels, but also its topmost storey was set off on another row of stone corbels. Slender proportions and low height meant that the tower required no buttresses, especially since it was slightly integrated into the nave of the church, thanks to the eastern wall of the tower built over the western wall of the nave. The ground floor of the tower did not function as a vestibule, but a gallery was likely located on the first floor, lit from the west by two trefoil windows.
Current state
Relics of the 12th / 13th century church are visible today near the ruins of Pennard Castle. The late-medieval church has been preserved in its entirety, but it is enlarged with an early modern north annex, northern sacristy and a small extension at the tower (sometimes the porch is also considered early modern). Some of windows of the church have been transformed (large windows in the nave with Y-shaped tracery), but the valuable southern, 13th-century chancel window and the late-medieval eastern window have been preserved. The gallery in the nave is modern, the wagon roof in the nave and the chancel are also early modern.
bibliography:
Davis P.R., Lloyd-Fern S., Lost churches of Wales & the Marches, Wolfeboro Falls 1991.
Gregor G., Toft L., The churches and chapels of Gower, Swansea 2007.
Newman J., The buildings of Wales, Glamorgan, London 1995.
Salter M., The old parish churches of Gwent, Glamorgan & Gower, Malvern 2002.