England & Wales Hardwicke Marriage Index
Marriages 1754 - 1837
Llanilltern St Ellteyrn

The Parish

The chapelry of Llanilltern, its mother parish being St Fagans, lies in southern Glamorgan roughly 6 miles west of Cardiff. Llanilltern, or as it is known on Ordnance Survey mapping today as Capel Llanilltern, sits on the A4119 road which links Cardiff with Llantisant. The chapelry has no village at all, merely a scatter of farms and cottages across its terrain. Like most parishes in this area it was a farming area with mixed pastoral and arable methods in roughly equal amounts. Modern developments abound around the chapelry, twin railway lines connecting Cardiff with Llantrisant merge to the northwest, both are now closed, that arriving from the south now re-purposed as the western route from the modern M4 motorway into the Cardiff Bay area as the A4232. The M4 carves its way just south of the chapel with a large service area at its junction with the A4232 taking up much of the acreage of the chapelry. Small brooks take water southeast to meet Afon Elai which heads through the western edges of Cardiff to enter the outer Bristol Channel through the Cardiff Bay development. Llanilltern is sited at around 40 metres above the sea but land rises more steeply northwards reaching 307 metres in Garth Hill which dominates northern views.Roughly 1,000 acres of St Fagans parish was designated for Llanilltern which would have supported a population of around 150 parishioners. Like most of Wales Llanilltern is not mentioned in Domesday Book which did not cover this area.

The Church

St Ellteyrn's church sits on the southern side of the A4119 at its junction with Heol St Y Nyll. Sadly the attractive little chapel which stands here today is not the venue for these few marriages as it was completed as a Victorian replacement in 1863. A simple chapel of nave and chancel, the latter being slightly lower, and capped off at the western end by a bell gable. The dimensions are small as befits the tiny congregation, however the area is apparently rife for development which may increase said congregation significantly. Parking alongside the churchyard is difficult as the main road carries a lot of traffic, to the west the verge is clearly used for such parking. Metal gates grant entry to the small and compact churchyard which has no obstacles to concern the photographer.