Church of St Twrog

Church of St Twrog

This is a large, essentially cruciform church built in the Decorated style, comprising a nave, transepts, chancel, south chancel chapel and north vestry. A south-west tower with a tall broach spire projects from the corner of the nave. The building is constructed of regularly coursed and dressed rock-faced rubblestone with ashlar dressings, and the spire is also of ashlar. Roofs are of slate with stepped ashlar coping and elaborately decorated iron crosses to the gables.

The tower and spire form the most prominent feature of the church. The tower is buttressed at the corners and has a massive iron door with studding and decorated strap-hinges set in a pointed doorway on the south side. The tower comprises two stages and features triple traceried and louvred windows with roundels above, set in gabled panels at the bell stage. A hexagonal staircase projection with a stone-capped roof projects from the east face. Above a string course and corbel table rises the spire, which is tall and slender, with two tiers of small crocketed lucarnes.

The nave has one window on the south side and two to the north, all set above high cill bands and featuring two lights with Decorated tracery, hoodmoulds and head-stops. A similar but larger three-light window appears in the west wall, below which a straight flight of stone steps descends to a vault (boiler house), with a traceried roundel above at the gable apex. The transepts have three-light windows above high cill bands to their gable walls, the south featuring a series of cusped quatrefoils at the top and the north a roundel and tracery forming a Maltese cross pattern; both have traceried roundels at the gable apexes. The east end of the chancel displays a similar arrangement with a five-light window and traceried roundel above, with straight-flight stone steps descending to a family burial vault beneath. A reset and much worn stone panel with a double-headed eagle (the Wynn family emblem) over a door probably dates to the 17th century. The south chancel chapel has Decorated windows in its south and east walls. The north vestry has a square-headed Perpendicular-style window in its east wall, also with a traceried roundel above, and an integral end stack with gable-capped paired and rebated shafts directly above a shallow Tudor-arched doorway on the north side.

The interior is a very fine and unaltered high Victorian space, retaining several notable features from the previous church. The nave has an arch-braced roof in five bays with carved stone corbels, exposed rafters and ashlar pieces. The two western bays form an organ loft with a pipe organ dated 1863, supported on a triple-arched open stone screen with clustered shafts and cusped detailing to the arches and spandrels. The balustrade has intersecting and cusped oval patterns. The area to the west of the screen forms a baptistery with an octagonal font on clustered shafts (old, probably early 18th century; an octagonal font on a short pedestal without base is in the tower porch). The main body of the nave contains collegiate-style stalls to the walls with high canopied and panelled backs, partly obscuring the stained glass windows, with a single set of pews in front facing inward. Original oil light fittings (now converted to electricity) hang from the roof. Similar seating is found in the transepts, the north of which houses a Victorian octagonal stone pulpit with traceried panels and a tapered shaft, while the south contains the lectern and an old wooden pulpit incorporating a fine early 16th-century panel, probably of Flemish origin, depicting the Crucifixion. Stained glass in the north transept commemorates members of the Griffith family (dedication date 1846) and in the south commemorates Frances Wynn (dedication date 1920, though the plaque below refers to a window of 1863).

The vaulted crossing has a pointed arch on foliated corbels to the west and a full-height pointed chancel arch to the east with four carved angels to the springing. Reading desks flank the steps to the chancel, which is entered through a gabled and trefoiled archway in the centre of a very fine and highly decorated low wrought-iron screen reminiscent of the work of Francis Skidmore of Coventry. The eastern side of the screen has built-in stalls with free-standing fronts. A hollow-chamfered pointed doorway in the north wall leads to the vestry. Ornate rails flank a marble-columned high altar, and stained glass in the east window commemorates Frances Maria, wife of the 3rd Lord Newborough (dated 1857 with initials SBW, London). A timber screen to the south of the chancel with traceried open panels, partly made up from an old screen, leads to the Glynllifon Chapel, which in addition to its monuments contains several 18th-century Gothic-style chairs. Stained glass in the south window depicts Faith, Hope, Fortitude, Justice and Charity.

Monuments: The Glynllifon Chapel has on its west wall a large marble monument to Sir Thomas Wynn (died 1749) with a bust supported on scrolled brackets with a shell and cherub below the inscription panel. On the south wall is a marble monument to Ellen and Frances Glyn (died 1711 and 1709) with a rounded pediment and two burning lamps. On the south wall at the west end of the nave is a marble wall monument (top broken) to members of the Bodvell family of Bodfan (1731–60) featuring a mourning female figure contemplating an empty urn flanked by fluted Ionic pilasters. A simple 19th-century brass plate to members of the Wynn family is on the north wall of the chancel above the door to the vestry.