Llantwit Parish
Parish of Llantwit -Juxta-Neath - St.Illtyd`s.
View from the road leading from Neath to Tonna and the Neath Valley. 
This church stands on the site of the "cell" where
St. Illtyd is said to have located in the 6th Century.
  It is a good example of a Norman aisle-less church and the two-decker pulpit is the only one of its kind in the Llandaff Diocese and possibly in Wales.Up until Elizabethan times it was the Parish Church of Neath.
The font is Norman design and has a famous story attached to it:     Llywarch ap Iestyn was drowned in the font of the Church of Illtud where he was taken for baptism; Rhys ap Tewdwr`s men having come upon them, the Abbot who was baptising him ran away leaving Llewarch in the font, and the child was drowned.
Llantwit-St. Illtyd

View from the East Bank of the Neath River. The Towpath of the Neath Canal can be seen    in the foreground. At this point the river is still tidal and the salt marsh  floods at very high tides. 
 The Church of St. Catwg is due West from here and can be seen on the opposite side of the valley. 
 

 St.Illtyd from River
 The large Churchyard may contain 2 to 3 thousand graves but no plan exists. 

Five Wagstaff family burials are recorded for the period 1718 to 1760 but no gravestones remain for this period. The Neath Canal was built in 1798 and this may have destroyed some graves.  The earlier part of the graveyard was grassed in the 1970`s with headstones being moved to the sides and some laid flat in pathways.
The extensions Northwards of 1850 and then 1875 have been neglected and are overgrown with "knotweed". In the spring of 1998 a clearance programme has commenced. 
In 1898 the "New" Llantwit graveyard was opened. This is "Council" run and accurate records exist which can be consulted. I have located six Wagstaff graves here.

 
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