A CHURCH in Wales was seen in an entirely new light last Friday evening, when the light-artist Andy McKeown transformed the inside of St Idloes’s, North Powys, with his installation Splinters of Heaven.

More than 500 people came to see the kaleidoscope of evolving patterns of coloured light which flowed across the roof and walls of the building to the accompaniment of early sacred music. “I felt as if the pew on which I was sitting was rising into the air,” one visitor said. The work had been created by the artist from the church’s own stained glass.

The Vicar, the Revd Lynda Cowan, described the event as the church’s early Christmas present to the town. “I am delighted that local businesses, as well as the diocese of Bangor, had faith in the project to sponsor it,” she said.

The evening ended with a shower of snowflakes and stars which descended through the darkness.