The Following Text is from author Alun Hughes from the book "The Church of Llanymawddwy" first published March 2001
Origins
The earliest written reference to Llanymawddwy church, so far as is known, is its inclusion among the churches of Mawddwy and Cyfeiliog in the Norwich Taxation of 1254. The valuation for Llanymawddwy was the highest of these churches, being given as three marks, while Mallwyd, Cemaes, Darowen and Bryn Mair are two marks each - one mark being two thirds of a pound. This valuation was made at the behest of Pope Innocent XXIII to enable Henry III to collect tithes to fund his proposed expedition to the Holy Land. The next reference is in the Taxation of Nicholas IV in 1291. On the Pope's orders, the church tithes for three years were to be paid to Edward I to defray the cost of the Crusade which he was undertaking. Llanymawddwy is listed together with the chapels at Mallwyd and Garthbeibio, and valued at ten pounds the rectorial parish and two pounds for the vicarage. This can be compared with the sum of four pounds each for the rectorial parishes of Cemaes and Darowen. This staggering increase in valuation between 1254 and 1291 is in line with the steep increases reported for the two northern dioceses of Bangor and St. Asaph, as a result of the Conquest of 1282.
When Lewis Morris, the well-known antiquary, passed through Llanymawddwy in 1746, he noticed an ancient memorial stone in a stone wall near the churchyard. It bore the inscription in Latin: "(the stone) of the daughter of Salvianus, Ve...maie, wife of Tigernicus; and of his daughter Rigohene, wife of Oneratus". Two lines are missing; it is probable that they commemorated further members of the family. It is interesting that a memorial stone to the same Salvianus was recorded in the 17th century from Caer Gai, about ten miles distant to the north. Both stones were dated to the 5th or early 6th century by Professor Nash Williams in his book, Early Christian Monuments of Wales. Unfortunately neither can be found today. A few years after the typically Roman and pagan memorial stone was raised, with its emphasis on the family, one of the peregrini, Tydecho, arrived here in Llanymawddwy. He represented the new spirit in religion, that of mysticism, asceticism and solitary contemplation. This movement out of Gaul was an evangelisation directed at western Britain; tradition maintains that Tydecho landed at Tywyn, Meirionethshire, accompanied by Cadfan, his cousin and a few followers. According to "The Lives of the British Saints" by Baring-Gould and Fisher, Tydecho was the son of Annwn Ddu ab Ynyr Llydaw, and a brother of St.Samson of Dol in Brittany. Tradition asserts also that he and Cadfan visited Bardsey Island, but whether this was before or after he established a cell at Llanymawddwy is not clear; if it was afterwards, then Tydecho is probably among the twenty thousand saints who lie buried at Bardsey.
Tydecho must have been attracted to the solitude of this mountainous valley, and at Llanymawddwy the valley broadens out to level land, especially to the west of the river. On a slight rise Tydecho raised a cell and a small church where the church of today stands, away from any possible flooding from the Dyfi or the Pumrhyd. He chose the site well; even after 1500 years the site has remained unchanged. In addition to Llanymawddwy, the daughter churches of Mallwyd, Cemaes and Garthbeibio claim him as their founder, in keeping with the monastic origin of all the Welsh cathedrals and religious centres of the British Church. Tradition states that Tydecho used to retire for prayer and contemplation to a lonely spot called Cell Fawddwy on the mountain of Llwyn Gwilym; it is perhaps significant that this retreat lies on the direct line between Llanymawddwy and Garthbeibio.
The life of Tydecho survives in a poem by the Welsh poet Dafydd Llwyd of Mathafarn (about twelve miles down the Dyfi from here) written towards the end of the 15th century.
The poetry is not very intelligible in places, but it may be summarised as follows.
Tydecho, an abbot in Armorica, (Brittany), having suffered an inundation of the sea, came over here in the time of King Arthur, whose relation Tydecho was. The poem states that St. Tegfan and St.Dogmael had their cells here once, but Tydecho settled here, "a grey friar worthy of praise". Here Tydecho tilled the ground and lived an austere life, wearing a shirt of hair and sleeping upon a shelf of rock. The report of his sanctity reached the ear of Maelgwn, the prince of North Wales. He to tease him sent a stud of white horses to be fed by the prayers of the holy man; the horses immediately changed colour, and ran wild on the mountains where they fed on heath. When the horses reappeared they were all found to be of a golden colour, which Maelgwn would not own to be his, and in reprisal he took away Tydecho's oxen. The next day however wild deer were seen to plough Tydecho's field, and a grey wolf harrowing behind them. Maelgwn with his white dogs sat down to watch this sight, on a blueish stone above the church. He found when he tried to get up, that he was stuck fast to the rock. Maelgwn "though long in anger", submitted at last, and was released by Tydecho. As a thanks offering, Maelgwn granted several privileges to Llanymawddwy, particularly that of a sanctuary for criminals.
The poem relates how Tydecho cured the crippled, the blind and the deaf. His greatest feat was striking with blindness rioters who forcibly carried away his sister, Tegwedd. Tydecho rescued her from the hands of Cynon, Prince of Powys, without a stain on her character. Cynon to make amends gave Garthbeibio to Tydecho. The poem ends by exhorting us all when in distress to seek Tydecho for redress:
“Eled pawb, o'r wlad y bo,
I duchan at Dydecho".
Maelgwn Gwynedd died of the yellow plague about the year 550, so if we attach some credence to the legend of his encounter with St. Tydecho, we have to accept that Tydecho's church was founded some years before 550. This accords with the evidence from the date of the Roman stones to Salvianus and his daughters, which we can date to around 500 A.D.
Tydecho raised a small building of wood with clay and laths bound together to afford shelter, and very probably a fence or wall encircling the area. This area would in time be the 'llan', and we would have expected the small habitation that would grow around it to become known as Llandydecho. According to the local historian Charles Ashton writing in 1888, the original name for the hamlet was Llandudech, but that in the course of time it was supplanted by Llan yn Mawddwy.
For many centuries thereafter no records exist, but in the mid 13th century we find all the churches in the Dyfi valley within the diocese of St. Asaph. We may assume that over the centuries the intense personal loyalty of the Celtic church to her saints and to her monastic foundations only gradually gave way to a system based on a territorial, bishopric and diaconate division. But nevertheless the name of the founder saint was kept for succeeding generations, as was the case in so many parishes in Wales.
The stone font, which is the first thing one notices on entering the church, is a silent witness of those early times, indeed it predates the earliest written record, for it is most likely to date from the first half of the 13th century. The octagonal bowl of the font is decorated on the outside surface by a scallop design around the upper portion of the basin, and finished off lower down by a plain horizontal band. The font is carved in a hard sandstone of a yellowish cream colour, a stone which is quite foreign to the slaty and gritty rocks of Llanymawddwy. This raises a question as to its origin. The most likely source is the area of sandstone rock around Grinshill in Shropshire, and that it served as a monastic font, possibly at either Strata Marcella near Welshpool or at Cymer Abbey near Dolgellau. It was probably moved after the dissolution of the monasteries in the time of Henry VIII. The font stands on a low pedestal of igneous rock, which may have been used originally as a millstone.
