Some five miles from Abergavenny, gateway to the Brecon Beacons, sits the remote oddity of 14th-century Partrishow Church, built on the site of a 6th-century hermit’s abode.
The waters of St Ishow’s well have long been thought to possess healing powers and the little church is so far off the beaten track that its treasures remained untouched during the Reformation.
They include a 15th-century screen and loft of Irish bog oak, carved with dragons and saints, and a font a few hundred years older still with an inscription that translates as ‘Menhir made me in the time of Genillin’, a phrase that conjures Tolkien’s Middle-earth. A fresco depicting Death or Time is said to re-emerge spookily after every attempt to whitewash over it.
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