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1/20 Hello everyone. This thread is going to talk about a small community in West Wales (where I live), and efforts to reclaim various elements of its landscape, including a complex social history and rich archaeology which are usually hidden from view #HiddenLandscapes
2/20 Silian is a dispersed rural community near Lampeter in West Wales. It is within the top 20% of Wales’ most deprived areas in terms of access to services, and has no local amenities. There is nowhere for the community to meet and little social interaction #HiddenLandscapes
3/20 The focal point was the church, school, pub & smithy. The last two closed in the 1940s, but life still revolved around school and church. More houses were built. At school, children jostled for a place near the stove and sang together around the piano #HiddenLandscapes
4/20 The local authority closed the school in 1976, handing it back to the Church in Wales. Silian PCC acted as caretakers and the community continued to use it, as playground, polling station and events venue, for Young Farmers’ Club and footie training… #HiddenLandscapes
5/20 But, the land belonged to The Crown Estate, an 1855 reverter clause stating it must be returned when no longer a school. A 10-year legal battle between Church in Wales & Crown Estate saw the school become derelict. The Crown won and erected security fencing #HiddenLandscapes
6/20 The Crown would not donate the building to the community, who then tried to register the land as a village green, arguing they had been using it ‘as of right’ for over 20 years. A public enquiry found in favour of the Crown, who sold the school at auction #HiddenLandscapes
7/20 The church was now the only communal building. The Church in Wales closed the church in 2017, as its dwindling congregation could no longer pay their £5000+ a year Ministry Share, let alone fund extensive repairs to the building #HiddenLandscapes
8/20 The church had been a dependable presence since time immemorial, its festivals marking the rhythms of daily life, its walls witnessing generations of life events. When a congregation member was told ‘the building is only bricks and mortar’ she replied ‘Not to us it isn’t’
9/20 To protect the church, locals asked Cadw to list it, but were told it is ‘not one of the best examples of type’. Designed by R.J. Withers, it is a simple, High Victorian rural parish church with an unusual geometrical bellecote and pretty, rustic interior #HiddenLandscapes
10/20 Providing locals fund the repairs, the Church in Wales will lease us the building at a peppercorn rent, enabling its transformation into a multi-purpose community hub. A feasibility study (funded by LEADER & the Architectural Heritage Fund) found the project to be viable
11/20 The church site is an important heritage asset ( https://bit.ly/34vTGrn ). The curvilinear churchyard has a concentric outer enclosure defined by field boundaries. Fields above and below the church have numerous faintly discernible archaeological features #HiddenLandscapes
12/20 The church building houses 3 early medieval stones. Silian 1, built into the external south wall, dates to the 5th- to 6th- C. It reads ‘Silbandus iacit’, the personal name probably giving rise to the dedication (St Sulien’s) and settlement name (Silian) #HiddenLandscapes
13/20 A 9th-10th C carved stone pillar, Silian 2, is decorated with knotwork and fretwork. It formerly stood in the churchyard, but has lain loose in the church since the 1960s. Unlike Silian 1&3, it is scheduled and therefore legally protected #HiddenLandscapes
