St Melangell's Church is a small church located on a minor road which joins the B4391 near the village of Llangynog, Powys, Wales. It houses the restored shrine of Saint Melangell, reputed to be the oldest Romanesque shrine in Great Britain.
The church of St Melangell is set in a circular churchyard, possibly once a Bronze Age burial site, ringed by ancient yew trees, which may also predate the Christian era. It sits at the foot of a breast-shaped hill, at the edge of the road on the edge of the Berwyn mountains. Also located at the site is the restored shrine of St Melangell, which is reputedly the oldest Romanesque shrine in Britain, dating from the early 12th century.
The church consists of a nave and chancel in one, an eastern apse, and at the west end a tower. The building is oriented slightly north of true east. Roofs consist of slates with stone ridge tiles and the base of a cross finial at the east end. Black ceramic ridge tiles adorn the porch. The church contains a fine 15th-century oak rood screen with carvings that tell the story of Melangell and Prince Brochwel
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.