The Chapel of St Non is located on the coast near St David's. Held by tradition to mark the birthplace of St David, the ruin cannot be accurately dated but is unusual in that it is aligned north-south rather than the usual east-west. Near to the ruined chapel is a retreat, a modern chapel and a holy well.
The ruin is thought to be on the site of St Non's house and to be one of the oldest Christian buildings in Wales. In medieval times the chapel was one of the main sites visited by Christian pilgrims. Following the Protestant Reformation, pilgrimages stopped and the chapel was converted into a house before being used as a garden.
A large stone standing in the corner of the ruined chapel, inscribed with a cross within a circle, is known as St Non's Cross. The stone was found in the same field as the chapel and is either a grave or an altar stone. The stone is dateable to the 7th to 9th century, but there is no firm evidence that it originally came from the site.
In the chapel field there are a number of standing stones which may be evidence of an Iron Age settlement. It is possible that the chapel was built within an original pagan circle of standing stones.
A holy well close to the chapel was thought to have healing properties, and to this day visitors throw coins into the well for luck.
A modern chapel was built near the ruin in 1934 by Cecil Morgan-Griffiths, a solicitor from Carmarthen, using stone from ruined local chapels.
References:The Pilgrimage Church of Wies (Wieskirche) is an oval rococo church, designed in the late 1740s by Dominikus Zimmermann. It is located in the foothills of the Alps in the municipality of Steingaden.
The sanctuary of Wies is a pilgrimage church extraordinarily well-preserved in the beautiful setting of an Alpine valley, and is a perfect masterpiece of Rococo art and creative genius, as well as an exceptional testimony to a civilization that has disappeared.
The hamlet of Wies, in 1738, is said to have been the setting of a miracle in which tears were seen on a simple wooden figure of Christ mounted on a column that was no longer venerated by the Premonstratensian monks of the Abbey. A wooden chapel constructed in the fields housed the miraculous statue for some time. However, pilgrims from Germany, Austria, Bohemia, and even Italy became so numerous that the Abbot of the Premonstratensians of Steingaden decided to construct a splendid sanctuary.