A Bible that survived the last invasion of Britain has gone on display after being painstakingly conserved following years of neglect.

The Welsh-language Llanwnda Bible was printed in 1620 and has been kept at St Gwyndaf's church in the Pembrokeshire village.

About 60 per cent of it remains intact after it was damaged by French and Irish troops who landed at Fishguard during the Napoleonic Wars in 1797 and rampaged through local properties. They smashed up pews in the church for firewood and tore pages out of the Bible to use as kindling. Historians believe they also used pages as toilet paper.

Discipline among the invaders quickly broke down and they were quickly defeated by a scratch force of British troops and local irregulars. One suggestion is that they were demoralised by the sight of local women in traditional red cloaks and tall black hats, mistaking them for British Grenadiers.

The Llanwnda Bible was only found in the 1990s, wrapped in a black bin liner at the back of the church. Current vicar Rev Sarah Geach told the BBC: 'The story goes that the book was rediscovered at the back of the church in the 1990s and nobody realised what it was.

'The parish made a cabinet but of course they were not able to store it under the right conditions and over a period of time it started to deteriorate.'

It has been conserved at the University of Wales' rare books strongroom and allowed to dry out. It is now on temporary display at the university's Roderic Bowen Library and will be moved next month to the National Library of Wales in Aberystwyth, where more conservation work will be done.

Dr John Morgan-Guy, honorary research fellow at Trinity St David's, said the Bible 'did well to survive when you consider what it must have been through'.

He told the BBC: 'Expert analysis of the bible suggests these soldiers grabbed it by the hard cover and tore the bindings, which were made of wood and thick, strong string, from the paper with considerable force.

'They then ripped handfuls of sheets from the bible and used them to start a fire outside so they could cook food and keep warm.

'Alas, some of the sheets were used for more basic purposes by the soldiers.'