Walking up to St. Mary's Church, Penterry

While walking back to the wild campsite after my dawn visit to Tintern Abbey, I encountered a Scottish man out running who advised me to walk much further up to the top of the hill where we were camping to see a small church there:

Upon the Scottish man's advice, we zipped up our tent and started walking up the hillside, taking a left turn at the bridge below:

And as we got higher and higher, eventually moving onto clear land, we started seeing small signposts for the church:

Besides this, a wonderful lady farmer helped us to find the church which was further up the hill than we'd expected:

Very soon, we discovered that the church was called St. Mary's, Penterry

Have just read that Penterry is a small parish in Monmouthshire, Wales, set between the villages of St. Arvans and Tintern, and about four miles north of Chepstow in the Wye Valley.

 

The Penterry area is said to have been severely affected by the Black Death (Plague) of the mid-14th century, and a grove of trees near the church has been identified as a plague pit.

The present church building was mainly rebuilt in the mid-19th century but still contains some much older features, for example, two medieval windows. 

Interestingly, the church still has no electricity and uses oil lamps.

My favourite shot from St. Mary's, Penterry, was the one below of the rear of the church, with a birdhouse nicely sat on a tree trunk:

Unfortunately, for security reasons, the small church has to remain locked outside of church service times.

Have just discovered that after St. Mary's was restored (after many years of disuse) in Victorian times, it once again became at risk of being closed down until some local residents formed a committee in 2001 to raise funds to regenerate the church.

As a result, St. Mary's currently has monthly communion services and is becoming a hub for a scattered rural community again.

On our way back down the hill to our wild campsite near Tintern Abbey, we met the lady farmer again and had a friendly conversation.

We also acknowledged that it was good of the Scottish man to put us on the trail of St. Mary's, Penterry.