Church of St Cawdraf

Church of St Cawdraf

This is a small rural church of cruciform plan with transepts, a north vestry and south porch attached off the west end of the nave. The oldest part of the building is the early 17th-century north transept, which together with the early 20th-century north vestry is built of rubble masonry with freestone dressings. The remainder of the church is constructed of snecked masonry with freestone and blue brick dressings, and diagonal buttresses. The modern slate roof has stone copings with cross gable finials and a shouldered west bellcote of ashlar masonry. The north vestry has stone copings on a parapet gable and a tall square stack with shaped capping at its south-east corner.

The east and north walls of the early 17th-century north transept each contain an original window of three round-headed lights in a square frame with a straight chamfered label. A stone above the north window of the transept bears the date and initials 1612 R:H:W:/S. To the north of the east window is a doorway with chamfered jambs, moulded stops and a segmental head with a heavy keystone bearing initials (now overgrown with vegetation and indecipherable, possibly M I/E). The step to the doorway is formed from a 12th-century gravestone, an incised cross on a base of two steps. The north window of the vestry is an early 20th-century copy of the north transept windows. The west window to the heating chamber below comprises paired windows of square openings, now blocked.

The openings in the late 19th-century nave, chancel and south transept are dressed with blue brick, except for the east window which is a cusped tracery window of three trefoil-headed lights in a pointed arch framed with hoodmould. The two-bay nave and south transept have paired lancet windows. A single lancet window in the west gable has a reset stone tablet over which bear the initials and date I H S/1613, with a datestone of 1881 set above. The porch has a pointed arched doorway with hollow chamfered jambs.

The 19th-century nave consists of three roof bays with a single bay chancel and south transept, and a two-bay north transept. The roof has exposed closely spaced rafters on paired purlins and chamfered arch-braced collared trusses with crown posts springing from squared corbels.

The fittings are mainly late 19th century, contemporary with the rebuilding of the church. The early 17th-century pulpit is much restored, originally four-sided forming a hexagon on plan, with each side tapering down to the base in three tiers of panels. The posts are carved with floral and leaf patterns and the rails with geometric designs; the base is moulded. The panels contain geometric and some conventional floral designs. One of the upper panels bears an inscription reading "IN THE / NAME OF / IESUS . AMEN" and another shows the initials and date E I:1622. The cresting is modern, dating to the 19th century.

The chancel is raised by a single step and the sanctuary by a further step. The chancel rail is moulded on shaped balusters and square newels; the reredos is panelled with a moulded rail. Opposing arched recesses in the chancel walls are formed with re-used 17th-century window heads.

The east window depicts St David flanked by Joshua and Gideon. A bronze plaque on the north wall of the chancel records that the window was erected in memory of those lost in the First World War. The north transept window depicts St Catherine, St Luke and St Hugh and is a memorial to Hugh Robert, youngest son of Lieutenant Robert Hughes RN of Plas yn Llangoed Esquire and to Catherine Rutherford Greig his wife, erected in 1907.

The church contains several mid-18th-century memorial tablets: to Margaret (Lhoyd) wife of Francis Wyn, curate, died 1750, and to Margaret daughter of Roger Hughes died 1765 and his son William died 1774. There is also an 18th-century tablet bearing a shield of arms of Iarddur (a stag's head cabossed) on the east wall of the south transept, and a number of 19th-century marble memorials to the Hughes family of Plas yn Llangoed.

A 14th-century font has a plain octagonal bowl on a modern shaped pedestal. A plain stoup, possibly 15th century, is reset in the porch.