Welsh Journals

county is at once apparent upon a glance at the accom- panying map, where the position of a towerless church is indicated by a white circle. It will be noted that the churches having undoubtedly old towers-marked in black on the map-form a line along the north coast- Cilgerran Nevern Newport Llanrian St. David's. Their presence and their particular situation is accounted for by the desire for strongholds for coast defence, or for defensible places of refuge in case of raids by rovers from the sea. This line of North Pembrokeshire towers, in fact, forms part of a long series of fortress towers that fringe the shore of Cardigan Bay, for in the adjoining county of Cardigan, which is on the whole a towerless area like North Pembrokeshire, we find towered churches on or near the coast at Llanbadarn-Fawr, Llanilar, Llanfihangel- y-Creuddyn, Llanrhystyd, Llansantffraed, Llanddewi- Aberarth, Llanarth, Verwick and Cardigan. The churches marked by a white circle on the map are not, it is true, all of them towerless at the present day. Mathry, for example, was entirely rebuilt in the nineteenth century, and has a massive though incomplete modern tower. The earlier church on the same site may have had a tower, and locally it is said to have had one. In that case Mathry would take a place as one of the line of fortress towers along the seaboard for purposes of defence in an otherwise towerless district. The tower at Maenclochog is modern, as is also the one at Jordanston, and both are feebly designed. The present churches of Llanfyrnach, Llanfi- hangel-Penbedw and Moylgrove also have towers, while those of Clydey, Whitechurch and Llanfair-nant-gwyn have towers surmounted by spires. But the spires are certainly foreign importations, out of character with the local church architecture, and in none of these cases is it now quite clear that the original churches had towers.