Places to go : Churches to visit around Abergavenny

	Kilpeck Church in Herefordshire near the Welsh border, is home to the finest collection of Romanesque sculpture in England. It was built in about 1140 and has survived remarkably intact and unaltered to the present day. This is the magnificent south door which was carved about 1140.
	St Mary's Church, Craswall This fascinating medieval village church was constructed of the local sandstone in the 11th Century. It was rebuilt in the fourteenth Century, and since then has been used as a schoolroom and parts of the vestry for storing the locally produced wool. It is most notable for the amazing painted interior, with designs of running foliage and flowers which have been carefully preserved over the centuries.
St Martin's Church, Cwmyoy This is a pretty little crooked church with a leaning spire in the beautiful Llanthony Valley. Above the church, on the skyline, is a great gash on the side of the mountain caused by a landslide and it is this feature which gives the church and village its name Cwmyoy - the valley of the yoke. Local tradition says the landslide was caused by a terrible earthquake during Christ's crucifixion, when there was darkness over the whole land and the veil of the Temple was torn in two.

St Iussi, Partrishow

One of the treasures of Partrishow is the exquisite Rood Screen, which is carved out of Irish Oak. At the rear of the church you will see an unusual dugout parish chest carved out of a solid tree trunk, with iron bands around it and three locks, it was used for the safe keeping of parish valuables.

The Rector and church Wardens each held a key to one of the three locks, so the chest could only be opened when the three were present. It's a church so isolated that Henry VIII didn't even find it during the dissolution of the monastaries.

St.Nicholas Church, Grosmont

This historic church stands near the imposing ruin of Grosmont Castle. It is a large church built at roughly the same time as the castle, and it retains much of its 13th century character. St Nicholas is built on a cruciform plan with an impressive central tower and spire. Though much of the church was rebuilt in the Victorian period, the aisled nave is relatively intact, with a spacious medieval interior

The real treasure of Grosmont church is the tie-beam and king-strut roof, which current tests have revealed to be possibly the oldest existing church roof in Wales. A tree-ring study dates the roof to the period 1214-1244, suggesting that it was built during the time when Hubert de Burgh was lord of Grosmont (1219-32). This would make it the earliest scientifically dated roof in Wales, and the only known church roof in the country from before 1400.

St Mary's Priory Church, Abergavenny

This is a truly impressive building that holds a wealth of ornate early tombs, monuments and artefacts but is chiefly famous for sheltering a fifteenth century carving of the prophet Jesse, which once formed the base of a Jesse Tree.

This magnificent piece of artwork (artist unknown), hewn from a single piece of oak, has been described as one of the finest medieval sculptures in the world.

 
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