Hay on Wye / Y Gelli Gandryll / Y Gelli

The CPAT - Brecknockshire Churches Survey [http://www.cpat.demon.co.uk/projects/longer/churches/brecon/16794.htm [accessed 8 August 2010] notes: "The early history of this church is obscure. There is nothing substantive to indicate an early medieval origin, its location apart. At an early date it was appropriated to Brecon Priory and was dedicated to St Mary sometime between 1115 and 1135. It is recorded as 'Ecclesia de Haya' at the time of the 1254 Taxatio, when it was worth œ7 2s 2d, and nearly double at œ14 less than forty years later in the 1291 Taxatio [...] In 1684 Dineley sketched a nave and smaller chancel, both buttressed, a half-timbered porch and a west tower with a pyramidal roof; drawings of two grave slabs and the font were also included. The building collapsed about 1700, leaving only tower, although Dawson has it that this catastrophe related to another church dedicated to St John, and sited elsewhere in Hay." (Dineley 1684, 139 ) [NB: Thomas Dineley [aka Dinely or Dingley], a Worcestershire topographer of the 17th century, member of the Society of Gray's Inn, and author of a number of works ramging from Ireland to France; died in 1695]