Church of St. Peulan

Church of St. Peulan

A small medieval church built of local rubble with gritstone dressings and a slate roof with stone copings. The building comprises a nave of two bays with a shorter, narrower chancel and a south chapel. The nave is crowned with a single gabled bellcote at the west end, while the chancel and south chapel have iron gable apex crosses; the chancel also features angle buttresses at its east end.

The principal entrance is through a 19th-century chamfered pointed-arched doorway at the north end of the east wall of the south chapel. To the left of this doorway is a small round-headed window, reset from the 12th century, and between the two is a weathered inscribed stone set under the eaves bearing the date and initials "1637 / I.G. / R E [J ...]".

The south window of the south chapel is a 17th-century window of two square-headed lights. The nave contains similarly detailed 19th-century windows—two in the north wall, a single window in the south wall, and a blocked doorway at the west end. The chancel has an early 16th-century window in the south wall with hollow-chamfered jambs, a blocked 14th-century window in the north wall, and a 15th-century east window with two trefoil-headed lights in a square frame with moulded label, the label returns terminated with carved human heads.

The south chapel and chancel are divided from the nave by similar 14th-century arches, each with two hollow-chamfered orders. The chancel arch is round-headed, while the arch to the south chapel is pointed. The nave comprises four roof bays, while the chancel and south chapel each have two roof bays. The roof is 19th-century work with exposed rafters and collared trusses with curved braces descending to wall posts on plain corbels.

The 19th-century fittings are simple in character. The pulpit features a moulded cornice over recessed panels with chamfered angles. The moulded sanctuary rail stands on widely spaced chamfered posts with diagonal and crossed braces between. One of the chancel stalls retains an inscribed wooden panel forming its back, which reads: "THE : SEATE : OF / WILLIAM : BOLD : OF / TREYRDDOL : ESQUIR / 1664".

At the west end of the nave stands a late 12th-century gritstone font, a rectangular bowl decorated on three faces. The upper part of each angle has roll moulding. The east face displays an expanded arm wheel-cross flanked at the base by half-spheres and enclosed by a border of three bands, the outermost of which has cabled sides and chevron decoration along the top edge. The north face has an arcade of round-headed arches standing on a band of lozenge pattern. The west face shows a square chequerwork panel over a band of Greek fret.

The church contains numerous memorials from the 17th, 18th and early 19th centuries. The north wall of the chancel holds a marble memorial to Anne, daughter of John Rowlands of Clegir Mawr (died 1792), John Rowlands (died 1793), his wife Eleanor (died 1820) and their daughter Mythanwy (died 1836); a slate memorial to Margaret, daughter of Rev. William Griffith, Rector of Rhoscolyn (died 1770); and a slate memorial to Hugh Davies of Trefeibion Meyrick (died 1690). The east wall of the chancel has a marble memorial to John Williams of Treban (died 1806) and his son John (died 1804). The south wall of the chancel displays a slate memorial to Hugh, son of Owen Jones of Penrhos Branwen, and his wife Mary (died 1765), Hugh, son of the aforementioned Owen Jones (died 1784), and Jane, daughter (died 1784). Painted wooden plaques are also mounted above and flanking the blocked entrance at the west end of the nave.