Llangeitho

Yesterday (Wednesday) a friend here in Aber (Mike Iliff) kindly took a myself and another minister friend (Peter McKenzie) down to Llangeitho. It's only about 20 miles away but for some reason I had never been.

The main thing to see is the statue of Daniel Rowland outside the present CM Chapel. Some few things inside the chapel go back to Rowland's time too (the flagstones on the way in and a communion cup). He began ministering in the Parish Church which we also saw. That is where he is buried and there is also a pulpit there he is believed to have preached from.

The other thing to see these days is a slate plaque outside the caffi, which notes that this is where Dr Martyn Lloyd-Jones lived 1904-1914 (as reported on this blog some time ago).

It was a very nice afternoon out and a reminder of the greatness and providence of God. I can recommend the bacon bap at the caffi, very nice.

The 19th century was dne by Edward Griffith. Below it are these words

Daniel Rowland ganwyd 1713 bu farw 1790

O nefoedd! nefoedd! nefoedd! Buasai dy gonglau yn ddigon gwag on i buasai fod sion yn magu plant i ti ar y ddaear!

Meaning

Daniel Rowland Born 1713 Died 1790

Oh Heaven! Heaven! Heaven! Thy corners would be sufficiently empty were it not that Zion is nursing for thee children upon the earth.

O nefoedd! nefoedd! nefoedd! was apparently a saying of Rowland.

Plaque to Lloyd-Jones unveiled

According to the Cambrian News a plaque has been unveiled at the former home of a famous preacher, in Llangeitho, Ceredigion. Dr Martyn Lloyd- Jones, lived in Albion House, in the centre of the village, between 1904 and 1914.

Dr Jones moved to the village with his family when he was six, and attended the village primary school and later Tregaron County School. The plaque was unveiled by his great granddaughter Angharad Marshall. Pictured with her is Dr Gwyn Davies, of Aberystwyth, a lecturer in church history at the Welsh Evengelical School of Theology in Bridgend.

Afterwards, Dr Davies gave a short address on the life of Dr Lloyd-Jones.

My father-in-law tells me it was a shop  in Lloyd-Jones day (there was a famous fire from which he was rescued) and it is a café today. The owners were delighted to have the plaque unveiled. The people planning and organising the event were a couple of local folk, quite unknown to the Welsh evangelical world, just conscious of this famous preacher who had once lived here. He thinks they have been rather naïve in not letting local churches know. The Lloyd-Jones Recordings Trust (who to be fair did announce it on Facebook) gave money for a tea and then the Doctor’s great grand-daughter, Angharad, a final year student in Swansea University, came along with a Christian friend and spoke briefly on behalf of the family (she is one of Bethan Catherwood’s children).

It was a Sunday afternoon in December so only 18 people turned up. If they had planned it for August and the week of the Aber. Conference hundreds would have come there and there would have been some preaching.

I understand that it is part of the Ceredigion Faith Trail although that fact has not been noted on the site yet. In fact if you look up people there, only three are mentioned. Daniel Rowland one expects but Dafydd ap Gwilym and Dylan Thomas are in a rather different category.