OS grid reference SO299232 Country Wales Postcode district NP7 Dialling code 01600 | Sovereign state United Kingdom | |
 | ||
Cwmyoy (Welsh: Cwm-iou) is an extensive rural parish in Monmouthshire, Wales. Alternate spellings include Cwm Iau, the name translating from the Welsh as "valley of the yoke"
Contents
Map of Cwmyoy, Abergavenny, UK
The village of Cwmyoy is located 7 miles north of Abergavenny and 4 miles south of Llanthony in the Vale of Ewyas in the Black Mountains. It is within the Brecon Beacons National Park, in an upland location just below the broad ridge of Hatterrall Hill, which carries the Wales-England border along which runs Offa's Dyke Path.
The parish
The parish is nearly 8 miles long and 1 mile broad, and includes Llanthony as well as Cwmyoy itself. In 1893, an area in the neighbouring valley of the Grwyne Fawr, known in Welsh as Ffwddog and in English as the Fothock, which had been an exclave of Herefordshire, was transferred into the parish.
Local amenities
The Cwmyoy area is very popular for hillwalking and pony trekking. Llanthony Priory, Capel-y-ffin and Gospel Pass are all accessed by passing below Cwmyoy village.
Cwmyoy also has a small village hall which is run as a registered charity.
St Martin's Church
Cwmyoy is best known for St Martin's Church which has been called the "most crooked church in Great Britain." St Martin's Church is a stone parish church standing on a steep hillside on the east side of the valley and subject to slippage. The church chancel has been described as a remarkable example of a "weeping chancel", where the nave represents Christ's body and the deflected chancel his head fallen sideways in death. At Cwmyoy not only the axis but the whole chancel slews sideways. Hando calls it "the Church below the Landslide".