Colwyn Bay postcard: St Trillo’s Chapel
This granite postcard on the promenade at Rhos-on-Sea refers to St Trillo’s Chapel, said to be the smallest church in the British Isles. Communion services are still held there – but it seats only six people!
The chapel nestles into the bank between the road and the beach at Rhos-on-Sea. It encloses a spring which reputedly provided drinking water for Trillo, a 6th-century saint. For many centuries, the spring’s water was used for baptisms across the large parish of Llandrillo.
Archdeacon and historian DR Thomas (1833-1916) wrote that St Trillo’s Chapel was one of the nine “earliest religious edifices in the country” and corresponded to the earliest oratories of Ireland and Cornwall.
In the 18th century, the antiquarian Thomas Pennant wrote: “I saw close to the shore the singular little building called St Trillo’s Chapel. It is oblong, has a window on each side, at the end a small door, and has a vaulted roof paved with round stones, instead of being slated. The whole building is surrounded with a stone wall.”
The perimeter wall had been replaced by a basic wooden fence by the time Walter Harris took the photo c.1970, shown here courtesy of Conwy Archive Service.
Click here for a map of the postcards' location.
Website of Conwy Archive Service
https://www.conwy.gov.uk/en/Resident/Libraries-Museums-and-Archives/Archives/Archives.aspx
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