We are spoilt for choice of Norman churches on Gower, but
the stocky one at Ilston has a special charm. At the edge of the village, at the head of a deep wooded valley, there is peace going back centuries. The bridge by the gate
crosses a gentle bubbling brook with grey wagtails, and reaches the sea just a
mile or so downstream. The huge yew tree, its trunk standing on a mound of
earth and roots, is thought to date to the age of the church. It dominates the
ancient building; another, a baby by comparison, stands ready to take its
place. Mistle thrushes, coal tits, noisy jackdaws, nuthatches and great tits all
make the big tree home, and maybe the tree creeper, silently climbing the trunk
has done so too. A great hum of bumblebees and the gentle cooing of woodpigeons
provides backing for the music of blackbirds, robins and a song thrush in the
village beyond.
God’s acres are havens for wildlife. There are no
artificial fertilizers; plants and animals exist free from external pressures.
There are no rare things here, just the commonplace, but when summer gets going
it will probably be a botanist’s paradise. Snowdrops are finished now, and it’s the
turn of lesser celandines, primroses and daisies to decorate the churchyard,
whilst newly flowering wild strawberry and ivy-leaved toadflax cling to the
limestone church and walls. Set in beech woods carpeted with wood anemones, the
old rectory sits on the hill behind the church, has been in private
ownership for generations, and is part of the history of this place. At the
back of the church, old lichen-covered 17th century gravestones,
many unreadable, lean against the tower; lost from their owners they may stay
there for centuries.
On leaving by the gate a modern reality check: ‘Beware of unsafe
gravestones’. How ridiculous is that? I wonder what the incumbents are
thinking.
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