By Karl-James Langford

"Now, Mr. Karl-James Langford, what of the historical buildings of the District, in the Barry and District?"

Good point, yes this column should have more of our district featured. North of Barry is the award winning village of Pendoylan, a village which one could easily miss as heading out of Barry towards the motorway.

But, one building towers above the landscape: the church. Choice word, 'towers', that's what we show this week, the tower of St.Cadoc, Pendoylan.

St. Cadoc Church (St. Cattwg) is a listed building and fairly up the list of monuments II*, as it is a fine example of a church within Barry and District. I have focused on the tower of the church this week although it has an equally interesting nave, chancel and porch.

The tower holds not one but six bells. A set of bells is known as a peal. The smallest or lightest bell giving the highest note or treble for the campanologist to ring, to the biggest or heaviest bell giving the deepest note or tenor. Campanologists are very proud of the arrangement of six bells at St.Cadoc. Four of the original bells, having been recast since have a story of their own. So let's tell it.

The church at Pendoylan owes much of its fine work to the Hensol Estate, and particularly a certain Judge David Jenkins. Judge Jenkins was a renowned avid supporter of the royalist cause in the British Civil war of the 1640s and 1650s.

He nearly came to a sticky end in the siege of Hereford in December 1645 after he was captured. Sent to the tower of London and other prisons for royalists, he kept himself busy writing. The parliamentarians planned to hang the Judge in 1650, but this failed, but he lost his Hensol estate for a short time.

Judge Jenkins was released in 1657, and received his estates back. As a gift to the people in thanks of his release, he gave a peal of four bells to St. Cadoc church Pendoylan. That would later be recast; as was the way back then.

The tower - as with the rest of the church - was established on much earlier footings, with a major stone structure constructed here sometime in the 1100s, then major changes yet again in the early 1300s and recorded in 1855 by the Hensol estate. There is grounds to believe that the church alongside the village was a well established pre-Norman settlement.

The tower of St. Cadoc saw further work for its long term future in 1893; probably down to the weight of the bells and account of its age also. But it's likely the architects for the extra work, 'Bruton and Williams' of Cardiff, kept any restoration in fitting with earlier work; and it does indeed have that feel about it.

The tower falls in with the rest of the church architecture of gothic in style. The work of local limestone; not whitewashed now (but it would have been in the past), sees a tower of crenellations - ready for any eventuality! Underneath the crenellations is a level of finely carved corbels. The windows of the tower show as could be expected 100s of years of changes and styles associated with them. The doorway at the base of the tower probably dates to the late 1500s.

Maybe we could return and discuss another view of the church of St. Cadoc in the village of Pendoylan within our Barry and District another day. Thanks for joining me on this weeks journey.