The Gower Ministry Area
In a formal review of the Church in Wales, carried out in 2012, it was recommended that, to avoid the problem of single parishes working alone becoming vulnerable, and to make use of the potential for greater cooperation between churches, parishes should form groupings into Ministry Areas.
On the Gower Peninsula, the whole of the former Gower Deanery was designated the Gower Ministry Area. The churches of the Ministry Area are divided into three Benifice groupings of North Gower, South West Gower and Three Cliffs. In total, there are seventeen churches distributed over the 70 or so square miles of the peninsula. All of the churches are of historic interest with some having elements that date back to the sixth century, in addition to earlier links with the arrival of Christianity to this part of Wales. More details are given elsewhere in this website.
The peninsula juts out some 19 miles westward into the Bristol Chanel just west of the city of Swansea. It is a rich and varied environment with dramatic limestone cliffs and sandy beaches to the South and West, and areas of salt marsh to the North along the estuary of the river Loughor. In 1956, the Gower Peninsula was the first area of the United Kingdom to gain the formal designation of An Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty.
Gower Ministry Area 