Villagers at Llanfapley have been busy fund-raising over the past three years in a bid to save their medieval church.

A “significant portion” of the money needed to restore St Mabli’s has been found, with essential repairs to the roof, windows and stonework still needed.

In addition, the exterior walls need to be protected with a lime coating, and the interior redecorated.

When St Mabli’s featured on a television programme last year, historian Judith Leigh explained that the church had escaped heavy restoration during the 19th century. As a result, it retains many original features, including a Norman font dating from 1150.

Once the community decided restoration work had to be done to make the building weatherproof, safe and secure, it took villagers over three years to raise the money.

The Heritage Lottery Fund awarded them a grant of £100,000 towards the costs, CADW contributed a further £71,000, the Historic Churches Preservation Trust gave £2,500 and individual donations came to £10,000 to enable the work to start.It sould be completed by Christmas.

In the meantime, services will be held at the cricket pavilion at Llanfapley on the second Sunday of the month at 11am.