‘Wales’s religious heritage is disappearing’ — what happens when churches close?

Wales’s religious heritage is disappearing, or being sold off, at possibly the fastest rate since the Reformation. “Over the past ten years, 101 former Church of Wales churches have been sold, either freehold or on a long-lease arrangement,” Mr Plane says. Taking them from an unlisted Church in Wales church still requires adhering to the Church’s stipulations about disposal. (Some 73 per cent of open Church in Wales churches are listed; only 47 per cent of functioning chapels are.) They look after churches that are “redundant, remote, and remarkable”, and half their buildings — 36, including St Gredifael’s, Penmynydd — are former Church in Wales churches.