St Baglan's (PRN 3102; NPRN 43690) is an isolated church which occupies a coastal/estuarine position only metres from the edge of the tidal inlet of Foryd Bay, on the south side of the Menai Strait very close to its western end at Abermenai Point. St Baglan's is home to a later 5th or early 6th century inscribed stone (`FILI LOVERNII / ANATEMORI?) which has been re-used as the rear lintel of the south doorway (Nash-Williams 1950, 88; RCAHMW 1960, 200). The earliest dateable feature of the present church is the late 13th / early 14th century north door. The present chancel is modern, rebuilt c. 1800, and there is a south chapel built c.1600 (RCAHMW 1960, 198-9). There are two cross-incised slabs of early 14th century date built into the east wall of the porch (Gresham 1968, 102-4).

During July 2005, summer drought conditions conducive to cropmark formation became widespread across much of north-west Gwynedd, and led to a number of site discoveries during two aerial reconnaissance sorties carried out by RCAHMW, on 27th July and 2nd August (Driver 2005). One of the most striking discoveries was a group of ditched enclosures photographed in ripening barley surrounding St Baglan's church.

The group of ditches partly enclose, and form one side of, the original cemetery of the church (the cemetery has been extended to the east in recent times, and the original boundary removed). In plan, they define an overall irregular polygonal enclosure some 186m north-south by 140m at its maximum east-west extent, enclosing some 1.71 hectares. The northern half of the main enclosure appears to define a single univallate circuit with no internal structures. In the southern half several smaller enclosures radiate out from the church suggesting several phases, while a discrete oval enclosure is appended to the outer edge of the main ditch on the west side, between it and the coast. There is a lack of clarity in the definition of the cropmark around various parts of the circuit, and nowhere more so than in the south-east quadrant where the greatest complexity is recorded. The remains could be interpreted as a substantial enclosure constructed neatly within the southern half of the main polygonal enclosure, with the church or an early structure at its eastern angle; this was then appended externally in the same or several different phases by at least four or five ancillary enclosures. There is no certain indication of a main gateway to the enclosure group, but there are many probable and possible gaps. A part of the south-east perimeter may be preserved as a raised terrace within the cemetery. The north side may just be visible as a scarp skirting the base of a low ridge that slopes to the south and west.

The morphology of the crop marks can certainly be paralleled with late prehistoric enclosures elsewhere in Gwynedd (see examples in RCAHMW 1960), however they may equally reveal a settlement of medieval date that formerly lay around the church, and where, in 1306, Madog the chaplain lived and served his church.

Edited from Driver and Davidson, 2005, 'New Discoverues at St Baglan's Church, Llanfaglan (Bontnewydd), Gwynedd', Archaeology in Wales 45, 104-106.