The Pembrokeshire National Park is best known for its incredible landscapes and wildlife, but did you know that it also contains some of the UK’s most beautiful churches and chapels?

Now, the National Churches Trust is making it easy for anyone visiting a National Park to also discover this amazing national heritage.

Nineteen delightful churches from the Pembrokeshire National Park are included in a new online visitor’s guide on the National Churches Trust’s ExploreChurches website.

All are amazing and unexpectedly sacred spots, places where you will feel the connection with the Park’s landscape and can be wowed by their art and architecture.

The guide includes top tips on the best churches to visit each park and some stunning photographs to whet the appetite of heritage lovers.

Over two hundred churches and chapels found in the UK’s 15 National Parks are featured in the new online visitor’s guide, which has been produced to mark 70 years since the first National Park was created.

Some of the top churches to visit in the Pembrokeshire National Park include:

• St Govan Chapel, Bosherston: a truly unique experience. This little place is perched halfway down, or up, and beside a holy well. This is a place to connect with the ancients and the elemental; a medieval pilgrimage chapel in a dramatic setting, perched on a cliff face above the Atlantic sea, approached down a flight of worn stone steps.

It is thought to date from between the 11th and 13th centuries, but there may have been a chapel here in the 6th century, established by St Govan, an Irish monk who legend has it, was being chased by brigands when a fissure opened in the cliff face.

• St Gwyndaf, Llanwnda: Overlooking the Atlantic, the church was founded in the 6th century, a ‘palpable reminder of the early saints’ liking for the isolated and the elemental’.

This was the last place to be invaded in Britain. In 1797 French marauders scrambled up the cliffs here one dark and stormy night and took solace in the church. They reputedly lit a fire with the pages of the bible, now kept in a display case with its charred pages on view!

• St Mary, Tenby: Rows of pretty town houses in pinks, blues, greens and creams line the harbourside. Above them all rises the spire of St Mary’s.

Here is a memorial to mathematician Robert Recorde who died in 1510 and who is famous for having invented the equals (=) sign!

• St David’s Cathedral: No visit to Pembrokeshire is complete without exploring St David’s. It is a sacred place of pilgrimage and worship set on a spectacular Pembrokeshire peninsula jutting out into the Atlantic upon the site of an earlier 6th century monastery built by St David, the patron saint of Wales.

St Davids has been described as a ‘thin place,’ a place where the distance between heaven and earth is thin as gossamer, a place where the prayers of thousands of pilgrims are tangible. Many find themselves touched by this deep spiritual atmosphere.

Bill Bryson, a Vice-President of the National Churches Trust said: “It is impossible to overstate the importance of churches to this country.”

“Nothing else in the built environment has the emotional and spiritual resonance, the architectural distinction, the ancient, reassuring solidity of a parish church.”

“To me, they are the physical embodiment of all that is best and most enduring in Britain.”

“So, when you visit the Pembrokeshire National Park, why not discover some beautiful churches in this most breath taking and treasured landscape.”

Sarah Crossland, Engagement Manager for the National Churches Trust said: “This year marks the 70th anniversary of the designation of the Peak District as the UKs first National Park.”

“From the rugged wilds of the Cairngorms in Scotland and the ancient woodlands of the New Forest in southern England to the golden shores of the Pembrokeshire Coast in Wales, all the UK’s National Parks are truly special places. And so are the hundreds of churches and chapels in the National Parks.”

“Our new ExploreChurches online visitor guide makes it easy for visitors to National Parks to also discover some of the UK’s most beautiful churches. “

“These stunning buildings, many of which date back to medieval times, are the jewels in the UK’s heritage crown. No visit to a National Park is complete without discovering these beautiful churches, each with an amazing story to tell.”