Church of St. Cyngar

Church of St. Cyngar

The Church of St. Cyngar is a Gothic style parish church built of local, roughly dressed, coursed masonry with sandstone dressings and a slate roof. The building comprises a nave of three bays, a north vestry, a west tower, and a Perpendicular chancel at the east end, topped with stone gable apex crosses.

The nave features pointed-arched windows with hoodmoulds in each bay; the easternmost window of the south wall displays Y-tracery. The nave and west tower share a continuous plinth, while the angles of the nave and chancel are strengthened by offset, diagonal buttresses. The west tower stands in four stages with offset, angle buttresses at its corners. The entrance to the church is positioned in the west wall of the tower, accessed through a pointed-arched doorway of three orders with a hoodmould. The modern plank door is topped by a pointed-arched fanlight with radiating glazing bars. Above the tower entrance, rectangular openings with hoodmoulds light the lower stages. The third stage displays an ornate wrought-ironwork clock face on the south wall. The belfry in the upper stage is lit by pointed-arched, louvred openings with Y-tracery and hoodmoulds on each face. A continuous narrow dripcourse runs around the top of the tower, above which sits an embattled parapet with pyramidal pinnacles at each corner. The chancel features pointed-arched Perpendicular windows with panel tracery on its south and east faces, each with hoodmoulds. The north vestry is accessed via a pointed-arched doorway in its north wall.

Interior features

The main entrance leads into a porch in the lower stage of the west tower. A 4-centred arched doorway opposite opens into the nave. Above this inner doorway hangs a brass plaque recording the church's construction by parish rates with subscriptions from various contributors, dated 29 June 1824, and signed by Evan Williams (Rector), Wm P Poole and Rice Roberts (Churchwardens). The Society for promoting the enlargement and building of churches and chapels contributed £250, Lord Bulkeley £300, the Marquis of Anglesey £30, the Bishop of Bangor £25, Owen Williams Esq. £40, O A Poole Esq. £30, Revd Edward Standly £12, Revd Henry Hughes £20, and the Rector £100.

The porch preserves fittings from the old church, including a water stoup in the south wall, a 12th-century font with a tapering cylindrical bowl decorated by a band of irregular chevrons around the rim, and a 5th-century inscribed stone set to the right of the inner doorway. The inscription reads: CVLIDOR / IACIT / ET ORVVITE / MVLIERI / SECVNDI / (FILIVS) (the last word is scratched), with a band of chevrons at its head.

The wide nave features an organ gallery at the west end, set on tapering octagonal piers with cusped tracery brackets. The gallery front has stick balusters supporting a moulded rail. The nave ceiling is enclosed, cambered, plastered, and articulated by seven roof bays defined by plain, shaped corbels. The easternmost corbel is particularly decorative, featuring delicate cusped tracery detailing and a central pendant, with diagonally set wallposts on shaped corbels. The chancel ceiling is similarly detailed with cusped braces and wallposts down to shaped corbels, the faces decorated with quatrefoils.

The chancel is raised by two steps, separated from the nave by a 4-centred, broach-chamfered chancel arch. The sanctuary is also raised by two steps and features a moulded chancel rail on paired, widely spaced moulded balusters. Both chancel and sanctuary are laid with encaustic tiles. The reredos comprises recessed timber panels, some with cusped tracery at the heads. The chancel window contains stained glass depicting Jesus as the good shepherd flanked by the Apostles James and John.

In the north wall of the nave is a pointed-arched, chamfered doorway to the north vestry. Near this doorway stands the octagonal pulpit, with recessed facing panels featuring cusped tracery at the heads beneath an advanced moulded cornice. A 19th-century font stands at the west end of the nave beneath the organ gallery; it is octagonal with a cross carved in a rectangular recess in its north face, set on an octagonal shaft with chamfered angles and a roll-moulded base.

Memorials

The church contains numerous 19th and 20th-century memorials, as well as 18th and 19th-century memorials from its predecessor. The north wall of the nave displays three marble memorial plaques to members of the Poole family. The westernmost, by Francis & Spence of Liverpool, commemorates Anne, widow of Richard Poole of Pencraig, died 1815. The central memorial records Richard Poole Esq. (died 1799), his wife Mary (died 1771), and their children Jane (died 1763), Richard (died 1768) and Robert (died 1771), as well as Martha, widow of Anthony Poole (died 1794). The easternmost, by W Spence of Liverpool, commemorates Owen Anthony Poole, died 1823. The south wall of the nave bears a brass plaque to Owen Owen of Glyn Afon, gentleman, died 1760, and a marble memorial to Revd Evan Williams, Rector when the church was erected, died 1861.