page_title: Thomas Johnes
section_title: Eglwys Newydd church
hierarchical_section_title: Thomas Johnes / Eglwys Newydd church
caption_attribution_description: English: Hafod Church Pic taken from the side of the B4574 to Cwmystwyth.
context_page_description: Thomas Johnes FRS was a Member of Parliament, landscape architect, farmer, printer, writer and social benefactor. He is best known for his development of the Hafod Estate in Wales.
  Johnes was born in Ludlow, Shropshire, England. Upon moving from his family home at Croft Castle to an isolated area near Cwmystwyth, in Ceredigion, Wales, Johnes began his life works by building a church for the local tenants, a school, and magnificent gardens, walks and bridges.
  He undertook experiments in sheep and cattle breeding together with the growing of new crops and a thriving dairy was established. Trees were planted in great quantities on land considered unsuitable for crops; Johnes obtained the Royal Society of Arts medal five times for planting trees. He encouraged his tenants to improve their farming practices when in 1800 he published A Cardiganshire Landlord's Advice to his Tenants, with a Welsh translation and offered prizes for good crops. He was also one of the chief supporters of the Cardiganshire Agricultural Society, founded in 1784. Johnes devoted his entire life fortune to improving Hafod Estate.
context_section_description: In 1803 Johnes hired James Wyatt, architect of Broadway Tower and Fonthill Abbey, to design a church for the estate to replace the existing structure established in 1620 by William Herbert of the Herbert family, which had fallen into disuse and was surrounded by bramble.
  The cruciform structure, constructed at the sole expense of Johnes, was designed in Gothic architecture, has a square tower at the west end. In the centre of the cross is a richly ornamented font of artificial stone, supported on an octagonal shaft; one side of the basin bears a shield charged with the arms of the family of Johnes, and the faces of the shaft are embellished with figures representing the cardinal virtues. A painting, by Fuseli, of Christ and the two disciples of Emmaus is installed in the northern transept. The southern window was composed of an ancient stained and painted Renaissance Flemish glass had been installed in Cardigan Priory church. Johnes removed the window from that church for his own project at Hafod. The window shattered by fire in 1932, and the fragments collected together in small groups.
  Several of the Herberts of Hafod are buried in the church graveyard, to whom headstones were erected.
  In the fire in 1932, a sculpture monument by Francis Legatt Chantrey, erected to the memory of the late Miss Johnes, which depicted herself and her weeping parents was destroyed after well-meaning fire fighters doused it with water causing it to shatter.
  Known today as Hafod Church, it lies within the Vicarage of Llanafan, Aberystwyth. Services are still held at the church every other week in English and Welsh.
caption: The Saint Michael's Hafod, Eglwys Newydd church
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