The church stands as it has for centuries—a stone sentinel watching over the damp, undulating Welsh landscape, its walls holding whispers of generations past. In the quiet aftermath of the festive season, when the world settles into a contemplative hush, I find myself drawn down the lane to St Saeran’s – a low-slung grey terrier of a building, nestled in amongst the water meadows of Dyffryn Clwyd.
The grass, slick with winter rain, seems to hold the weight of centuries, each blade whispering tales of long-departed footsteps. The graffiti on the elm door dates from the 1600s, and there has been a site of Christian worship here since at least the sixth century.
Inside, among the bat droppings and fading frescoes, lies a relic that speaks to a forgotten profession as peculiar as it is fascinating: the dog tongs. These ancient concertina-ed implements, encased under glass with the casual reverence of a sacred relic, tell a story of a time when churches were living, breathing spaces. Not the empty, dust-ridden museums we know today – but vibrant chambers of community life where humans and hounds alike competed for sacred space.
Tools of the Trade
The dog tongs on display in St Saeran’s are about 200 years old, and made up of several lengths of elm or oak, hinged at each junction and with curved grippers at the business end. They’re just long enough to keep you away from snapping jaws, but short enough to effectively wield in between the rows of pews.
Across Wales and the Borders you will find surviving examples of this ancient craft, with designs varying from a set of hinged wooden paddles to a metal contraption that resembles something better suited to hoisting laundry from a tub. There’s a set on display in St Beuno’s church, Clynnog Fawr, that look sturdy enough to wrestle parishioners – let alone sheepdogs.
The National Museum of Wales preserves a set of wooden dog tongs from the seventeenth century, and at least three more survive in Anglesey parishes alone – each a silent witness to centuries of canine chaos.
Multi-Tasking in the Aisles
The problem of dogs in churches was once widespread and commonly understood. From the Middle Ages onwards each household would likely have owned at least one dog, and those dogs often had the run of the village. Farmhands and drovers, their coats carrying the tang of sheep and soil, would have had several dogs as tools of their trade, and they would have been required to come straight to church from work. Where else to leave the pack of furry miscreants?
Attendance to service was clearly an exciting affair for a dog – canine mêlées erupting amidst the solemnity were not merely occasional disruptions, but a common enough occurrence to demand a specialized ecclesiastical official: the Dog Whipper.
The fact the role of Dog Whipper even exists seems like a bizarre exaggeration, a joke that got out of hand – but the evidence is there in parish records up and down the land. Outbreaks of canine disorder in churches were frequent enough to warrant an entire management system, with some churches even having a side door dedicated to expelling unruly beasts.
In a delightful quirk of parish management, often the ecclesiastical peacekeeper, half constable, half lion-tamer also doubled as a “sluggard waker“—a role that added another layer of comedic authority to their churchly duties. Armed with a long pole, that was often tipped with brass knob at one end and a fox tail on the other, they were charged with maintaining congregational alertness, delivering gentle (and not so gentle) encouragement to any parishioner daring to drift into slumber during the sermon.
These implements were wonderfully specific in their design. The brass-tipped end was reserved for rousing drowsy gentlemen, while the fox-tailed end was used to gently stroke the faces of dozing women—a distinction that speaks volumes about the social stratification of the time. One can almost hear the sharp crack of wood against wooden pew (if you were lucky), followed by a startled intake of breath, as the sluggard waker made his rounds.
A Respected Profession
The Dog Whipper—what a title for your business card! It conjures images of some stern ecclesiastical bouncer, armed with implements of canine and human control, standing guard over the delicate sanctity of worship. But this was no mere comic invention – by all accounts it was an essential part of life in the church, with the names of dog whippers entered into parish payrolls with the same solemnity as the rector’s.
Parish records also reveal a wonderfully pragmatic approach to providing for this multi-faceted role. In Flintshire, the wages paid to dog whippers were so established that when one died, his widow successfully petitioned to take over the role—and at the same rate of pay. The exact duties varied by parish, with some Dog Whippers charged only with keeping order, others with ensuring dogs stayed out of the church entirely.
Across England and Wales you can find traces of other remuneration, often as a portion of village land specifically set aside for the dog whipper—a small field known as “Dog Acre” that could be grazed, tilled or let out to their own benefit. One of the last recorded dog whippers, John Pickard, was appointed to Exeter Cathedral as late as 1856, with a small room in the cathedral still bearing the name “Dog Whipper’s Flat.”
Odds on Tongo
H.V. Morton, chronicler of forgotten Wales has a marvellous account from “In Search of Wales” which captures the kind of scene that could only arise where sanctity meets countryside pragmatism. Morton recounted the tale of a Welsh parson who habitually brought his own dog to church—a faithful companion who would typically rest peacefully in front of the lectern during services. On this particular Sunday, the dog—named Tongo—spotted a rival canine belonging to a local farmer, who had also brazenly brought his dog into Tongo’s domain.
What ensued was nothing short of bedlam. The two dogs, driven by some primal territorial instinct that cared nothing for the sanctity of worship, erupted into a full-blown battle. Dog tongs and sticks proved utterly ineffective against the whirlwind of snapping jaws and flying fur. As the congregation watched in a mixture of horror and barely suppressed fascination, the melee reached its crescendo. An old shepherd, seemingly more entertained than concerned, began loudly taking bets, his voice rising above the general chaos: “Three to one on Tongo!“
Imagine the scene: farmers and drovers arriving with working dogs, their loyal companions padding alongside muddy boots; gentry sweeping in with hunting hounds, each animal as determined to assert its status as its master. Reverend Jones looking down from high in the pulpit, trying valiantly to continue while skirmishes ensue under pew and altar. A sermon could unravel in moments—a fox terrier marking its territory, a recalcitrant spaniel’s nose investigating the altar, a hound’s sudden bark piercing the solemnity of prayer.
The role of the Dog Whipper died out in the nineteenth century, probably due to the Victorian emphasis on order and stoicism within places of worship – and a complete ban on dogs entering church grounds. The relics of their role linger on, proudly displayed in a dusty corner as rural curios. In a few churches along the Welsh Borders you can still find whips, tongs and even entire pews dedicated to the canine constable.
A Lost Landscape of Sound
The Welsh landscape, with its ancient rhythms and deep-rooted traditions, preserved this profession longer and more distinctly than anywhere else. In parishes like Llanynys, the Dog Whipper was more than an official—they were a living connection between the earthly and the divine, understanding that spirituality isn’t about pristine separation, but about embracing the messy, beautiful complexity of community life – even if that was sometimes expressed through brief flurries of violence.
As winter light filters through stained glass, casting its amber glow on those ancient dog tongs, I’m struck by how much we’ve lost. What might our sanitised modernity gain from reembracing a little of this earthy vitality, this symphony of life in all its disarray? Our modern churches stand mute and scrubbed, their silence a far cry from the lively hymn of barking, shuffling, and murmured reprimands of old. Here, in St Saeran’s, those tongs are more than a relic. They are a testament to a time when community was messy, imperfect, and utterly, beautifully alive.
The Dog Whipper may be gone, but their spirit endures. Beneath that fading 15th-century painting of St Christopher, those tongs rest—a silent reminder that true spirituality isn’t about perfection, but about embrace. Embrace of community, of imperfection, of life in all its gloriously uncontrolled wonder.
