They are not the sort of things you would normally find on the walls of a church but these ‘dog tongs’ were used in St Beuno’s Church at Clynnog Fawr, North Wales in the late 18th and early 19th century.

In the remote community just outside Caernarfon it was common for animals of all sorts to be taken to church, and these tongs were used to expel any unruly dog which may have interrupted proceedings in the house of God!