St Cynllo’s Church and its congregation would like to thank all those in the wider community who contributed, supported and donated to the Harvest Weekend’s events of 14 and 15 October.

It was exactly 133 years to those dates when, according to a newspaper article published by the Carmarthen Journal on 24 October 1890, “Llangunllo was one of the first to hold them (Harvest Festival) in Cardiganshire.”

Whilst in those days Christianity was not a minority religion nor Wales, the least religious country in the British Isles (as the latest census has now determined), worship and mission are still at the heart and soul of many of the churches attended by loyal, albeit smaller, congregations in the most rural of locations throughout Wales.

Whilst the article of 1890 refers to St Cynllo’s “as one of the prettiest in the Diocese”, it also pays tribute to the houses of Bronwydd and Gernos, which although long ago lost from the landscape, will remain forever in the hearts and minds of those who come to worship at Llangynllo especially, as the families responsible for the rebuilding of such a beautiful church.

Although the medieval St Cynllo’s was rebuilt and consecrated in 1875 in the high Victorian style of the established Church (as it was then), much earlier than that in 1795 the Lloyds of Bronwydd had founded the Calvinist Methodist Capel Drindod at Aberbanc while the Tylers of Mount Gernos had contributed towards the building fund of Bwlchygroes Congregational Chapel and given the land on which it was built in 1833.

In recognition of the growing movement of non-conformism throughout the county the Lloyds had also allowed the small mansion house of Cilrhiwiau on the Bronwydd estate, to be occupied rent free by a local dissenting minister.

These days at St Cynllo’s, although we can no longer boast the “surpliced choir” also referred to in the article, with the benefit of modern technology, the two hymns that the choir blasted out across the Bronwydd valley 133 years ago to the day of the service, i.e. O Sing Unto the Lord and the Sevenfold Amen, were each repeated at the beginning and close of the service.

The church would like to thank the Cambrian News especially for giving the opportunity of advertising what was a very special service in the history of St Cynllo’s Coed y Bryn.