St Peter’s Church is a Grade II* listed building situated in the village of Pentre. It was designed in
1890 and is seen as the focal point of the village and, indeed the whole of the Upper Rhondda Fawr
valley. It’s size and structure give an appearance like an imposing cathedral. The church is central to
the community and has been well maintained through the years.
However, as with many other buildings of a similar age, deterioration of parts of the structure has taken place. This was
accelerated due to the heavy rain and floods sustained by the village through the early part of 2020
when, between February and August, the village was affected by floods on four occasions.
This project will restore the roof and walls above the chancel section of the church as well as
repairing and repointing sections of the wall at a high level.
They also had funding from Listed Places of Worship / Welsh Church Act Fund / Parish Funds and PyC
are supporting them with a grant of £25,000.
Pen y Cymoedd Wind Farm Community Fund recognises and values the wide-ranging community
contributions made by places of worship. The Fund is not able to fund activities that are exclusively
party political or religious, so in addition to meeting general requirements, any proposal relating to a
Place of Worship they have demonstrated that they are available for wider community use and benefit and they are completely open and available
to all community members, with no exclusions. A condition of award was that they develop 12-
month programme of activities and events to bring more of the community into the venue and we
are excited to see how this develops.
“St Peter’s has for many years offered activities and support for the local and wider community in
many areas of everyday life. During the flooding crisis the Church was used twice for public
meetings, the first so that Councillors could hear and receive concerns from affected residents, and
the second, a few days later so that councillors could report back to the community on what actions
would be taken.
As already stated St Peter’s has a varied number of activities planned for 2022 and we look forward
to continuing to deliver these.
All the churches in the wider community are also ready and willing to provide support in times of
emergency. This was shown a few weeks ago when the whole community of the Rhondda came
together in St Peter’s for an act of worship which offered support for Ukraine and the Ukrainian
people in their time of need, as well as offering support to those in our own community who have
been affected by the conflict and the picture from Ukraine which they are seeing daily.
We live in a troubled world and the churches of our community will, we hope, always be there to
offer necessary support when needed. The award of this funding, and others to neighbouring
churches, by Pen y Cymoedd, will allow us to ensure the church buildings are there for meetings or
support, whenever needed, for many generations to come” – Kevin Stavely