The Glamorgan-Gwent Archaeological Trust
Historic Environment Record
 

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St Michael's Chapel

Primary Reference Number (PRN) : 01473g
Trust : Glamorgan Gwent
Community : Llantilio Pertholey
Unitary authority : Monmouthshire
NGR : SO33111827
Site Type (preferred type first) : Medieval Chapel
Status : Scheduled Monument

Summary :
St Michael's Chapel on the Skirrid may first be mentioned in 1610. Now represented by an earthwork platform.

Description :
The remains of St. Michael's Chapel is represented by an E-W platform. Its S, E and W sides are now low, spread, stony banks. There is no bank on the N side which seems to have been cut into outcrop rock. The entrance is on the S.
The chapel occupies the N end of an steep sided ridge and is within an enclosure which is unlikely to have been constructed for defensive purposes.
The work has been formed by scarping the hillside. There is a double scarp on the N and W and a single scarp on the E. To the S a weak bivallate work has been constructed across the narrow ridge. There must originally have been an entrance through these banks but it cannot now be traced.
The earthwork, with its inherent weakness, is of a type more frequently found as a building enclosure than as an isolated hill-top or hill-slope enclosure and was probably originally constructed to surround the chapel. (Quinnell, NV 1957; OS Record Card SO 31 NW 4)

Brook (1988, 79) notes this, with reservations, as first mentioned in 1610.

Foundations of a rectangular chapel on the summit of the Skirrid. Chapel now represented by a rectangular N-S platform, though an earlier, unidentified description on the scheduling description note that the bottoms of the chamfered jambs of the S door could once be seen. Bank inside at N end, with trig point.
Within a kidney-shaped earthwork enclosure, formed by scarping the hillside; double scarp N and W, single scap E; S weak bivallate work constructed at S across the narrow ridge. Original entrance to enclosure not now traceable (OS card SO 31 NW 4).
Evans 2003: GGAT 73 Early-Medieval Ecclesiastical Sites Project database

Sources :
Brook, D , 1988 , The early Christian church in Gwent , Monmouthshire Antiquary : 5 : 67-84
Cadw , Cadw Scheduled Monument Record
Cadw , Application for Scheduled Monument Consent
Evans EM, 2003-04, GGAT 73 Early Medieval Ecclesiastical Sites Project
02/Desc Text/Cadw/ Full Management Report/2006/ Copy in further information file

Events :
E002016 : Field visit St Michael's Chapel (year : 1957)
E008750 : GGAT52: Monmouthshire Historic Settlements (Part 1), Abergavenny & Skenfrith (year : 1996-1997)

Related records

Compiled date : 12-03-2004


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