Old Church of St. John the Baptist

100 m SE of Slebech Park, on a site close to the Eastern Cleddau estuary.

Since the demolition of the adjacent commandery in the late C18, St John's Church has been the principal remaining monument of an important establishment of the order of knights hospitallers of St John of Jerusalem. The visible fabric of the church now is mostly of the late mediaeval period with some subsequent alterations.

The benefice of Slebech with its church were first granted to the Order in the mid C12 by Wizo, Lord of Wiston, as a perpetual curacy. After the Dissolution the building became the parish church. At the Dissolution the church and estate were granted to Roger Barlow, whose descendants retained the old commandery as their seat until the end of the C18. George Barlow, who died in 1641, sought to re-endow the church as a vicarage, with lands, house and tithes; the S transept was to be dedicated as a chapel to the Blessed Virgin Mary, and the vicar was to pray twice daily for the souls of George Barlow and his heirs. This attempt to establish a latter day chantry was frustrated but the S transept became the Barlow private pew with a fireplace. The Philipps family of Picton Castle formed their private pew in the N transept.

Churchwardens' accounts show evidence of repair in the late C18. Six thousand slates were purchased in 1762/3. In 1766 the ceiling fell, and the last repairs were carried out in 1792. It was described by Fenton as a 'very respectable building' in its last years before redundancy. He mentions the rich canopy inlaid with white marble which covered the tomb in the S wall of the chancel, the two effigies within it which he took to be of differing historical periods, the nave paving of small 'painted bricks' resembling some preserved at Carew and the chancel paving of black and white marble, and the various monuments.

At the Consistory Court at Carmarthen, hearing objections to Baron and Baroness de Rutzen's grandiose proposed rebuilding of the church in 1835, its condition was dutifully condemned by the Rev. J Pugh, Rural Dean, and the Rev. A. Aymes. They represented it as ruinous with an unsafe tower and spire. (Fenton's description and drawing show, however, there was no spire.) They also mentioned the existence of a W gallery. The faculty to rebuild St John's on another site was granted. On completion of the new church the roof was taken off the old church and the building left to decay. Monuments were removed to the new church in the 1840s and after 1900.

In 1995 the title to the old church was granted to the Priory for Wales of the Reconstituted Most Venerable Order of St. John of Jerusalem, who had already carried out considerable work consolidating and preserving the ruins.

Sir William Hamilton (an acquaintance of Lord Nelson) and his first wife were buried in Slebech churchyard, but their tombstone was broken up.