Parish Church of St Derfel

Parish Church of St Derfel

This is a medium-sized parish church in the Perpendicular Gothic style, comprising a single-chamber building with porch and vestry additions that form an overall cruciform plan. The church is constructed of stone on a chamfered plinth, faced with coursed, dressed blocks of slatestone. The steeply-pitched slate roof features simple Victorian ridge decoration and coped gable parapets with gablets above kneelers. The eastern gable has a Celtic gable cross, while the western gable is surmounted by a 19th-century two-stage gabled Gothic bellcote of yellow sandstone with a pointed and chamfered bell arch and surmounting gable cross.

A single-storey gabled north porch, near-contemporary with the main church, has coved stone eaves and a 19th-century slated roof with plain bargeboards. The gable is timber-framed between stout stone flanking walls, with a chamfered arched-braced collar truss to the apex and a brattished tie-beam below. Early 20th-century boarded doors are flanked by ogee leaded lights, with six similar lights between tie-beam and collar. The left (east) side wall has an original slit light and chamfered plinth to both sides.

The north wall of the church displays three original three-light sandstone tracery windows with Tudor-arched heads and double hollow-chamfered jambs. The moulded labels feature primitive zoomorphic and head carvings at the stops. The central light of each window is slightly taller than those flanking, and is surmounted by two squat, cusped lights with original ferementa. The south side has three similar windows—two to the east and one to the west of a gabled vestry projection. This vestry originated as a later 16th or 17th-century south porch and was partly rebuilt in the late 19th century when it was converted to its current use. The slated roof features a large two-light leaded window to the south gable with sandstone jambs and plain mullion; blocked window openings appear to both sides. Above the vestry, flush with the main church wall, is a lateral stone stack with stopped-chamfered sides and moulded base and capping. The east gable has a double hollow-chamfered plinth moulding. A large Victorian sandstone east window in Perpendicular style comprises four lights with Tudor-arch and ogee, cusped heads, and twelve tracery lights to the apex.

The spacious single-chamber interior has plastered walls and a simple red and black quarry-tiled pavement, with simple mid-Victorian pine pews flanking a central aisle. An eight-bay original roof comprises a six-bay nave section and a two-bay chancel section, constructed as arch-braced collar trusses with delicate, moulded members. Modest, cusped windbraces and cusped quatrefoil and trefoil decoration appear above the collars, which additionally have foliated bosses at their centres. The chancel roof is canted and panelled, with moulded members featuring foliated bosses at their junctions and crenellated brattishing to the moulded wall plate.

A 19th-century octagonal font of Cefn sandstone, a gift from the architect of the 1870 restoration, features blind, cusped octofoils on an octagonal base. A similar pulpit has cusped and arched lights to each face, recessed in pairs, with a moulded top bearing foliated boss decoration, a chamfered plinth, and three steps up from the right.

The chancel is separated from the nave by a fine, original rood screen of oak. This has a central opening with four-bay flanking sections, each displaying lights with highly-cusped heads above five-bay arched dado sections with complex blind tracery. Moulded posts support a finely-carved vinescroll Rood Beam with crenellated brattishing. Above this is the rearranged Rood Loft, with twenty-four niches having pierced tracery lights and a brattished top surmounted by a 19th-century moulded beam. The chancel and sanctuary are stepped up with simple encaustic tiled pavements by Maw and Co. Plain pine altar rails rest on four Gothic iron supports. Behind the altar is a panelled oak reredos with two tiers of eight panels each. The upper panels incorporate Perpendicular crocketed canopy finials, clearly recycled from the Rood Screen canopy, with crenellated brattishing to the surmounting beam. On the north side of the chancel is a plain Gothic-style panelled organ by Liddiart and Sons of Gloucestershire, dating to the early 20th century. Simple Victorian painted choirstalls and a reading desk complete the chancel furnishings.

The north porch has a 16th-century two-bay arched-braced collar truss roof with simple chamfered detail. The north entrance is Perpendicular, with a Tudor arch, moulded and hollow-chamfered jambs with moulded label returns bearing carved head stops. Evidence of extensive knife and sword sharpening marks both jambs. The doors are 19th-century sunk-panel pine. The vestry (former south porch) has a primary Tudor-arched north entrance with chamfered, cyclopean slatestone lintel.

The windows feature plain leaded glazing to the east and west, with simply decorative glass to the nave. The easternmost nave window on the south wall contains stained glass of 1889 to the Sheriff family depicting the Adoration of the Magi. The nave north wall displays two white and grey figured marble monuments to the Williams family of Bodweni. The left monument was erected around 1820, recording dates from 1782 to 1913, with a moulded top featuring Gothic brattishing and polychromed arms. The right monument commemorates Robert Williams, Esquire, died 1823, and features a segmental pediment with Adamesque decoration. The chancel east wall has a white marble classical monument to the Reverend Samuel Stodard, died 1788, with a draped urn finial and surmounting crest. The chancel north wall bears a small black and white marble tablet to the Reverend Thomas Davies, died 1825, signed by E J Physick of London. In the east window splay of the north chancel window is an inset slatestone benefactor's tablet recording the gifts of John Williams of Nantffrayer, probably mid-18th century. Within the vestry are a wooden framed and painted funerary tablet to John Lloyd of Pale, gentleman, died 1742, and a small wooden tablet to Ann Pryse, died 1781.

The porch contains the Ceffyl Derfel (St. Derfel's Horse), a late medieval carved wooden stag with an associated turned staff or post. Both pieces feature chain attachments and evidence of primary gilding and polychromy. Half of an oak panelled early 18th-century churchwardens' bench stands against the east wall.