St Margaret's Church, Bodelwyddan - geograph

St Margaret's Church (nicknamed The Marble Church),

Bodelwyddan Bodelwyddan () is a village, electoral ward and community in Denbighshire, Wales, approximately 5 miles (8 km) South of Rhyl. The Parish includes several smaller hamlets such as Marli and Pengwern. Bodelwyddan is home to over sixty liste ...

, is a Decorated Gothic Style parish church in the lower

Vale of Clwyd The Vale of Clwyd ( cy, Dyffryn Clwyd) is a tract of low-lying ground in the county of Denbighshire in north-east Wales. The Vale extends south-southwestwards from the coast of the Irish Sea for some 20 miles (about 30 km) forming a triangl ...

Denbighshire Denbighshire ( ; cy, Sir Ddinbych; ) is a county in the north-east of Wales. Its borders differ from the historic county of the same name. This part of Wales contains the country's oldest known evidence of habitation – Pontnewydd (Bontnewy ...

Wales Wales ( cy, Cymru ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is bordered by England to the east, the Irish Sea to the north and west, the Celtic Sea to the south west and the Bristol Channel to the south. It had a population in ...

and is visible for many miles because its spire rises to 202 feet. It lies just off the A55 trunk road. The church was erected by Lady Margaret Willoughby de Broke (daughter of Sir John Williams of nearby

Bodelwyddan Castle Bodelwyddan Castle ( cy, Castell Bodelwyddan), close to the village of Bodelwyddan, near Rhyl, Denbighshire in Wales, was built around 1460 by the Humphreys family of Anglesey as a manor house. It was associated with the Williams-Wynn family fo ...

) in memory of her husband,

Henry Peyto-Verney, 16th Baron Willoughby de Broke Henry Peyto-Verney, 16th Baron Willoughby de Broke and de jure 24th Baron Latimer (5 April 1773 – 16 December 1852) was a peer in the peerage of England. Henry Peyto-Verney was born on 5 April 1773, the younger son of John Peyto-Verney (173 ...

. She laid the foundation stone on 24 July 1856 and the new church designed by John Gibson was consecrated by the Bishop of St Asaph on 23 August 1860 after construction at a cost of £60,000. The new parish of Bodelwyddan was created on 3 August 1860, from the communities of

, Faenol and

Pengwern Pengwern was a Brythonic settlement of sub-Roman Britain situated in what is now the English county of Shropshire, adjoining the modern Welsh border. It is generally regarded as being the early seat of the kings of Powys before its establishm ...

, which until that date had been part of the parish of St Asaph. When it was first built, it was nicknamed the 'Pearl of the Vale'. The church contains fourteen varieties of marble including pillars made of Belgian Red marble, a nave entrance is made from Anglesey marble and shafts of Languedoc marble on bases of Purbeck marble. It also contains elaborate woodwork, and in the tower can be found windows of stained glass on the north and south sides, featuring Saint Margaret and

Saint Kentigern Kentigern ( cy, Cyndeyrn Garthwys; la, Kentigernus), known as Mungo, was a missionary in the Brittonic Kingdom of Strathclyde in the late sixth century, and the founder and patron saint of the city of Glasgow. Name In Wales and England, this s ...

. It is a popular tourist destination. The church was designated with Grade II* listed status in November 1962. Until the latter part of the 20th century the church, and in particular its high steeple, was very distinctive because it was so white. With the passage of time, pollution has resulted in the colour becoming more grey, and therefore more like other stone buildings. Local government reorganisation resulted in the church being in

Flintshire , settlement_type = County , image_skyline = , image_alt = , image_caption = , image_flag = , image_shield = Arms of Flint ...

until 1974, in Clwyd from 1974 until 1996, and since then in

Churchyard

Immediately to the west of the church is Kinmel Camp, which was a military camp located in the grounds of

Kinmel Hall Kinmel Hall is a large country mansion within Kimnel Park near the village of St. George, close to the coastal town of Abergele, in Conwy county borough, Wales. The hall, the third building on the site, was completed in the mid 19th century f ...

. The camp was used by

Canadian Canadians (french: Canadiens) are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of ...

troops during the

First World War World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

. The churchyard contains the graves of numerous victims of the

Spanish flu pandemic The 1918–1920 influenza pandemic, commonly known by the misnomer Spanish flu or as the Great Influenza epidemic, was an exceptionally deadly global influenza pandemic caused by the H1N1 influenza A virus. The earliest documented case was ...

of 1918–19 in the camp. On 4–5 March 1919 a riot occurred in the camp when the ship allocated to return the troops to Canada was diverted to carry food supplies to Russia. Five Canadian soldiers were killed in the disturbances, four of whom were buried in St Margaret's Churchyard, with the fifth, Gunner John Frederick Hickman, being buried in

Dorchester, New Brunswick Dorchester is a formerly incorporated village and the shire town of Westmorland County, New Brunswick, Canada. It is named for Guy Carleton, 1st Baron Dorchester, an 18th-century Governor-General of the old Province of Quebec. It is located on t ...

. A common story is that they were executed for mutiny, but this has been denied by the Canadian Department of National Defence. In total there are 112 Commonwealth service personnel commemorated here from World War I. More than 80 of the graves are Canadian, and there are also Special Memorial headstones to 4 British soldiers who were buried at St Peter's Churchyard in Holywell. There are 2 war graves of British servicemen from World War II.

Footnotes

External links

*
Parish websiteArtwork at Marble Church, Bodelwyddan
{{coord, 53.2667, N, 3.4948, W, region:GB_source:enwiki-osgb36(SJ001756), display=title Bodelwyddan, Marble Bodelwyddan, Marble Churches completed in 1860

Bodelwyddan Marble buildings Commonwealth War Graves Commission cemeteries in Wales