The sole survivor was a medieval church where, 650 years later, a victim of the Post Office scandal was to find solace
The area around St Mary’s remains sparsely populated even to this day(Image: SteveCymro/Wiki)
In the early 14th century, the small Anglesey community of Tal-y-llyn had a population of around 110, all of them farming lands owned by the Bishop of Bangor. Life was tough but food was relatively plentiful: their calorific intake was unmatched until the 20th century.
All this was to change within a few months in the spring of 1349. In April that year, the first recorded case of the Black Death was reported in Wales, brought to Carmarthenshire by sailors from southern England.
The plague spread like wildfire. By the end of June, it was causing carnage across Wales: 77 people were reported dead in Ruthin, with similar numbers in nearby Llanerch and Llangollen. In desperate times, crime flourished: the Ruthin court rolls of August 1349 records the case of two brothers who, under the cover of darkness, stole money, goods and cattle from plague-stricken families.
By the end of the year, it’s estimated the country’s dead numbered almost 100,000, around a third of the Welsh population. In some communities, the attrition rate was estimated at 80%: the close-knit lead miners of Holywell were virtually wiped out.
Neither was Anglesey spared. Farming and building work ground to a halt as people perished in the fields. Many priests died on the island, including the one from Llechgynfarwy. Parish organisation was paralysed by the deaths of local leaders.
It was against this background that the peaceful village of Tal-y-llyn, three miles east of Rhosneigr, fell off the map. It was one of several medieval communities to be wiped out completely, if not from the plague then from the economic turmoil that followed it.
Like Cosmeston, another abandoned medieval village in South Wales, severe labour shortages may have seen Tal-y-llyn’s survivors seek work elsewhere. All of a sudden, fit, working-age peasants were in high demand. Join the North Wales Live Whatsapp community now
Skull of a Black Death victim (Image: After the Plague/PA Wire)
Given the shortage of written accounts from this period, it’s not known if the process was rapid or gradual. Over the next 60 years, the plague intermittently flared again, notably in the 1361 “Pestilence of the Children”. This outbreak disproportionately killed younger people as they lacked the acquired immunity of those who had lived through the 1349 massacre.
Surviving it all was a medieval church that still stands today, a solitary feature in a landscape once surrounded by a cluster of wattle and daub houses.
The church’s earliest elements date from the 12th century. It was built as a chapel of ease for the Llanbeulan parish, to service local people who could not travel to the main parish church, St Peulan’s, near Gwalchmai.
Even though the parish lost an estimated 60% of its inhabitants to the Black Death, St Mary’s was not forgotten: it continued to be maintained and in the 16th century the church was enlarged. The interior was refurbished in the 18th century, including its signature plank benches – rudimentary backless seating completely lacking pretension, the kind that stops people nodding off during sermons.
It wasn’t until 1992 that the Grade I-listed church finally closed. Subsequent vandalism was arrested when, seven years later, it was taken into the care of the Friends of Friendless Churches (FFS). When the charity discovered all but one of St Mary’s plank benches had been stolen, it used the surviving one to make facsimiles.
Aerial view of St Mary’s Church in Tal-y-llyn. Tal-y-llyn means ‘lake end’ – the church overlooks Llyn Padrig(Image: Google)
The church is open daily, with occasional services, and FFS said it is an ideal place for quiet reflection. “The site is incredibly picturesque and yet its remoteness provides deep peace and tranquility,” it said.
Of its humble seating and simple limewashed walls, FFS added: “It is a space in which there is no differentiation by wealth, status, age or sex. Everyone sits together.”
So it was entirely appropriate that it was at St Mary’s where Noel Thomas, the Gaerwen postmaster who was wrongly convicted and jailed during the Post Office Horizon scandal, retreated to find solace from life’s travails.
Until his conviction was quashed in 2021, he became a prominent figure in the campaign for justice, bravely sharing his story and raising awareness for the thousands of other victims.
Online, Phil Hen wrote: “It was here that my friend Noel Thomas… would spend hours within its ancient walls, grappling with the injustices life had thrown at him.”
St Mary’s wasn’t the only Anglesey church left bereft of its community by the Black Death. St Llibio’s in Llanllibio was another chapel of ease that saw its population of worshippers decline significantly.
Unlike St Mary’s, this church was left to ruin. It closed in the 17th century and, other than a memorial stone, only small traces can now be seen. Get the best island stories from our Anglesey newsletter – sent every Friday
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