St. Mary's Church, encircled by ancient yews, is a chapel of ease to Llanigon. It is one of the smallest in the country, only 8 meters by 4 meters inside. It was built in 1762 replacing an earlier chapel, and the south porch was added in 1817. The small oblong interior has a gallery along the west and south walls. Furnishings include an octagonal pulpit of 1780, five settles - one dated 1783 and a medieval font. The lopsided belfry has two bells, one medieval but recast in the 19th century.

Capel-y-ffin is also the home of the Anglican monastery of Llanthony Tertia, founded in 1870 by the eccentric Joseph Leycester Lyne, who took the religious name of Father Ignatius.

Lyne was an Anglican lay reader who was inspired by the monastic revival of the late nineteenth century and determined to found an Anglican Benedictine religious order. There was a great deal of opposition to his ideas, and he found it impossible to persuade any of the Anglican bishops to ordain him as a priest or to support him in any way. Eventually, he managed to buy some land in Capel-y-ffin and settled here with a small group of professed monks and novices. Masons were hired to build the domestic buildings, but the monks did much of the building work on the church themselves.

Unfortunately, their enthusiasm was not matched by their skill. The domestic buildings still stand and are occupied as a private house, but the church has long been in ruins. The structure is unsafe and part of it will probably have to be demolished to save the rest.

  

Officials at St. Mary's, Capel-y-Ffin.

Church Warden and Treasurer: Mrs. Joan Watkins, Nant-yGwyddel, Llanthony Tel. 01873 890439