Church of St Pabo

The Church of St Pabo is a simple medieval rural church with a continuous nave and chancel, built of rubble masonry with freestone dressings. The church likely dates from the 12th century, with later alterations. The roof is modern, made of split shale with projecting eaves; the east gable has stone coping, while the west gable features a raking parapet with split shale and a rough stone bellcote. A doorway on the south wall has been enlarged, featuring a rough stone voussoir head and rendered jambs. Above this doorway are three weathered stone heads of crude design, likely contemporary with the doorway's construction. The central head is in relief, while the others are formed by sinking around the head and features, one shaped like an egg within a ring and the other with a rounder head and a short body with extended arms. The south wall has three windows: a narrow 12th-century lancet window with a rounded head and widely splayed jambs, a modern rectangular window, and a late 14th or early 15th-century rectangular window with a single cinquefoil-headed light. The east window is a single ogee-headed light with tracery within a pointed-arch frame with a hoodmould. The north wall has three modern windows, the central one set into a partially blocked 18th-century doorway.

Inside, the church has an exposed roof of six bays with medieval arch-braced trusses and modern purlins and rafters. A 12th-century font, circular at the top and tapering downwards with a plain fillet around the base, is positioned to the right (east) of the south doorway. Early 20th-century fittings are present, including a sanctuary raised by one step with a simple rail on stick balusters and an arched footrail. Recesses are located beneath the east window and on the north wall of the sanctuary. A marble memorial tablet commemorates Williams Evans of Glanalaw, who died in 1782, and a stone memorial remembers William Rowland, who died in 1706. The north wall also holds a 14th-century monument effigy of St Pabo, a rectangular stone carved in low relief depicting a bearded king crowned and wearing elaborate pleated robes. A mutilated inscription in debased Lombardic lettering is on the sinister side.