Church of St Caffo

The Church of St Caffo is an Early English style building, likely dating from the early 13th century, with subsequent development. The church is constructed of rubble masonry, with limestone dressings. The south-facing walls and the east wall of the tower are rendered. It has a slate roof with stone copings. The building comprises a four-bay nave, a shorter, narrower chancel at the east end with a north transept, and a west tower with a broach spire. Lean-to additions are present on the east wall of the north transept and the south wall of the chancel.

The exterior features include lancet windows to the nave, with angled buttresses. The chancel has a single lancet window in the south wall and a pointed-arched east window of three lights. The north transept has paired round-headed lights in the north gable and a depressed pointed-arched doorway in the west wall; the east wall has a lean-to extension with a tall ashlar stack at the junction. The three-stage west tower incorporates a pointed-arched doorway in the north face at a lower level, narrow lancet windows above, and a belfry with paired trefoil-headed louvred lights. Tall buttresses are at the tower’s angles, and a stair tower at the southeast corner is lit by a single lancet window.

Entry to the church is through a pointed-arched doorway at the west end of the nave. The nave has six roof bays, and the chancel has four. The chancel interior shows exposed collared trusses. The sanctuary is raised by one step, with encaustic tiles and a moulded sanctuary rail resting on fretwork stanchions. A reredos is formed by recessed panels of encaustic tiles. A pulpit features facing panels with floriate carving under a moulded cornice. A 12th-century font is a circular bowl tapering to the base, where it has been cut to fit a modern octagonal plinth, with a redressed surface decorated with panels containing chevrons. The north wall of the north transept displays 17th-century memorials, including fragments of an alabaster mural monument dating from around 1660, comprising a broken pediment, a cherub’s head, a scrolled pediment with a small plate inscribed “M'iae SACRUM” and an achievement. Flanking this are slate memorial plaques to Edward Wynne, D.D., d.1669, and his wife Sydney, d.1670, and to Elizabeth White, wife of Hugh Hughes, d. 1630. An early 7th-century inscription stone, originally from Fron-Deg, Newborough, is also set into the wall. The porch contains a fragment of a pierced wheel cross head, dating from the 9th to 10th centuries, with interlaced work.

The churchyard contains the remains of a weathered 9th or 10th-century cross shaft, six 9th to 11th-century gravestones, and one dating from the 12th or 13th century.