History

St. Dogmaels is situated a mile (1.6km) west of Cardigan, on the opposite bank of the Teifi, near the river's estuary. The abbey nestles in a pastoral bowl of open fields divided by a small stream which comes tumbling down from a steep and narrow valley on its short, frantic journey to join the Teifi.

In fact, the bowl of fields probably represents the original monastic precinct. Today it is surrounded by housing and other later development, thereby preserving the shape and separateness of the ancient religious community.

To the earliest monks, this spot — close to a natural spring — must have seemed an ideal place for devotion and contemplation. It was an oasis partly enclosed by tree-clad hills to the south and west, protected by the river Teifi to the north, and hidden from the estuary by a bend in the river.

The site takes its name from Dogmael, one of the early Christian saints whose influence continued to be felt in this area until the coming of the Normans. The abbey itself was a Norman foundation but there are strong indications that it lay on or near the ancient pre-Conquest church of Llandudoch. The monastery was established about 1113-15 as a dependent priory of the Abbey of Tiron. A few years later, in 1120 Abbot William of Tiron consented to it becoming an abbey. St.Dogmaels Abbey itself was founded in 1120. An early charter states that the Anglo-Norman lord of Cemais, Robert fitz Martin (d. 1159), gave 'the ancient church of St Dogfael with possession of the land adjoining the same church, the name of which is Landudog' (Llandudoch in modern Welsh). The medieval abbey was to survive until its dissolution during the reign of King Henry VIII in 1536.