St Govan’s Chapel is built into a cleft in a limestone cliff at St Govan’s Head, near Bosherston on the south Pembrokeshire coast, eighteen kilometres from Tenby.
It measures about 20 by 12 feet, has two small chambers, and sits below the level of the clifftop with the sea in front of it — invisible until you are almost on top of it.
Most of the fabric is thirteenth century; parts may date to the sixth, when St Govan, a monk, is said to have settled in a cave here.
Govan is traditionally identified as a sixth-century Irish monk who came to Wales in old age.
The legend has him pursued along this coast by pirates, and the cliff opening to hide him, closing round until they had gone. He stayed for the rest of his life and the chapel was built where the cleft had been.
Inside, a fissure at the back of the chapel is pointed out as the one that concealed him. There is also a bell legend: Govan’s silver bell was stolen, angels recovered it and sealed it in a rock, and striking that rock produces the sound of the bell.
A holy well below, now dry, was a place of pilgrimage into the nineteenth century.
You reach the chapel down a flight of stone steps from the clifftop, and tradition says the steps cannot be counted the same going down and coming up.
This is entirely explicable — they are uneven, irregular and worn — and people still try.
Below the chapel the rocks run down to the sea, and on a hot day, sitting in the shade of the cleft on the rocks, it is one of the more pleasant places on this coast.
The chapel is inside the Castlemartin Range, an active Ministry of Defence live-firing area.
The road is closed when the range is in use. Red flags fly and the closure is absolute.
Check the published firing times before travelling. They are issued in advance by the MOD, appear on the National Park website and in the local press. Weekends and holidays are generally open; weekdays often are not.
Visitors who set off without checking find a barrier, and it is a thirty-five-minute drive from Tenby.
The range has preserved the finest limestone coastline in Britain, because there has been no development and no farming to the cliff edge.
The Green Bridge of Wales — a natural limestone arch — and the Elegug Stacks, sea stacks packed with breeding guillemots and razorbills in spring and summer, are a few kilometres west on the same road. Also range-dependent.
Huntsman’s Leap, a spectacular narrow chasm and a famous climbing venue, is a short walk east.
Bosherston Lily Ponds and Broad Haven South on the National Trust’s Stackpole Estate are just inland and are always open — the sensible fallback if the range is firing.
Barafundle Bay, regularly named among the best beaches in Britain, is on the same estate.
Free, with a free car park at the clifftop.
Time: twenty minutes for the chapel; a half day with the coast path.
Facilities: none. Bosherston village has a pub and tea rooms.
Access: the steps are steep, uneven and unrailed. Not accessible.
Safety: unfenced clifftop, and do not stray off marked paths anywhere on the range — unexploded ordnance is a genuine hazard.
Getting there: via Bosherston, about thirty-five minutes from Tenby by road.
No — the chapel is inside the Castlemartin live-firing range and the road closes when firing is taking place. Check published times before travelling.
Mostly thirteenth century, with parts possibly sixth century.
Yes, with a free car park at the top of the steps.
Go to the Stackpole Estate instead — Bosherston Lily Ponds, Broad Haven South and Barafundle Bay are always open.
Eighteen kilometres, about thirty-five minutes by road via Bosherston.