St Dona's Church, Llanddona

St Dona's Church, Llanddona
The church seen from the south
St Dona's Church, Llanddona Location in Anglesey
Coordinates: 53°18′18″N 4°08′27″W / 53.305121°N 4.140838°W / 53.305121; -4.140838
OS grid reference	SH 574 808
Location	Llanddona, Anglesey
Country	Wales, United Kingdom
Denomination	Church in Wales
History
Founded	610; present church built in 1873
Dedication	St Dona
Architecture
Status	Parish church
Functional status	Active
Heritage designation	Grade II
Designated	30 January 1968
Architect(s)	Reverend Peter Jones (1873)
Architectural type	Church
Style	Gothic revival
Specifications
Materials	Rubble masonry
Administration
Parish	Beaumaris with Llanddona and Llaniestyn
Deanery	Tindaethwy and Menai
Archdeaconry	Bangor
Diocese	Diocese of Bangor
Province	Province of Wales
Clergy
Rector	Reverend Neil Fairlamb

St Dona's Church, Llanddona is a small 19th-century parish church in the village of Llanddona, in Anglesey, north Wales. The first church on this site was built in 610. The present building on the site dates from 1873, and was designed by the rector at the time. It reuses earlier material including a decorated 15th-century doorway and a 17th-century bell.

The church is still used for worship by the Church in Wales, and is one of seven churches in a combined parish. It is a Grade II listed building, a national designation given to "buildings of special interest, which warrant every effort being made to preserve them", in particular because it is regarded as "a simple late 19th-century essay in Gothic revival".

St Dona's Church is on a steep hill near the coast on the eastern side of Anglesey, about 1 mile (1.6 km) from the village of Llanddona itself. The village takes its name from its parish church: the Welsh word llan originally meant "enclosure" and then "church", and "–ddona" is a modified form of the saint's name. St Dona's is surrounded by a churchyard, entered through a lychgate dated 1906 which bears a memorial to Henry Stanley, 3rd Baron Stanley of Alderley, "Patron and Benefactor of this church".

According to the 19th-century Anglesey historian Angharad Llwyd, a church was built here in 610, dedicated to St Dona, who lived on the sea shore nearby. The presence of a church here was recorded in the Norwich Taxation of 1254. Repairs were carried out in the 1840s: one 19th-century writer, Samuel Lewis, recorded that the internal state of St Dona's was "wretched in the extreme" until the rural dean at the time put it "into a state of creditable repair". In 1873, the rector (Peter Jones) had the church entirely rebuilt to his own design.