Highway Wood

The quarry is now a National Trust nature reserve. This photo is taken from near the stile into the reserve. Unfortunately the water is too deep to cross without waterproof footwear and there's nowhere to park if you wanted to drive across.

Hams Wood is in the distance, right.

View north from north of Kittle near Swansea Airport.

Looking north from the Kittle Road.

Looking west towards the A4118 and Ilston.

Hunkered down in Ilston cwm and reached across a narrow footbridge this chunky little church is essentially a Victorian reconstruction of the original mediaeval version. Apart from its delightful setting the church has an unexpected claim to fame in that it acted as the meeting place for the earliest Baptist congregation, under the leadership of one John Miles/Myles a parliamentarian who took over the living from the royalist incumbent in 1649. "From 1649 until 1660 the Ilston Baptists met in the parish church St Illtyd, of which Miles was rector or minister, though they always referred to the place as their ‘Meeting House’, not their ‘church’ or ‘chapel’. Baptist services and meetings were open only to members. Indeed, Miles was insistent that non-baptised sympathisers should not be allowed to attend. But Miles would also have held more general services for all the parishioners of Ilston, the majority of whom remained non-Baptists. The church had been built by the local de Breos family in the thirteenth century, probably on the site of an earlier Christian cell. It was drastically ‘restored’ inside and out in the mid nineteenth century, and many of the features familiar to Miles and his Baptists have been destroyed or altered beyond recognition." At the Restoration Miles was ejected, the Baptist movement was forced underground and in 1663 he emigrated to America along with many more of his co-religionists, and died there in 1684. The full story, from which the above quotation is abstracted, can be read here Link

St. Illtyd's church probably derives from a 6th century monastic cell. The present church was originally built during the 13th century incorporating the 6th century cell in the base of a massive embattled tower with a transverse saddle-back roof. There was the inevitable Victorian restoration and further work was carried out at the millennium. St Illtud/Illtyd converted from a military career to a life of asceticism. He achieved great fame as a teacher and is also credited with improving agricultural methods in Wales.

The steep churchyard at Ilston was deep in ramsons on this day in mid-May. There is said to be an old well in the upper part that has long since dried up. However, in the past, locals believed the well to be haunted. On one occasion a ghostly white horse called a 'ceffyl dwr' or water horse in Welsh folklore, was seen in the churchyard before it vanished into the waters of the well.

The tower in this view is partially concealed by a huge yew tree which is said to be as old as the church.

These doors, always in the shady north wall of a church, would be opened at baptisms for the exorcised devil to escape! They were usually blocked up in less superstitious, and more draught-conscious, times.

The stream runs through the deep, wooded Ilston cwm and joins Pennard Pill at Parkmill.

The Ilston brook is channelled alongside the narrow road in this ancient hamlet of very few dwellings - although the parish includes the more populous Parkmill to the south. Its Welsh name is Llan Illtyd.

The Elizabeth and Rowe Harding nature reserve at the old Ilston quarry which has been disused since 1966. It includes the carboniferous limestone rockface, plantation, limestone grassland, scrub and surrounding woodland. Kestrels nest in the quarry, kingfisher and grey wagtail can be seen in the river which is forded at this point.

View from above Illston to Carey's wood.

St Illtyd's church tower.