Church of St Mary

The Church of St Mary is a building of probable 17th-century origin, although extensively altered and renovated in the 19th and 20th centuries, comprising a west tower with a spire, a nave with shallow transepts, and a chancel. The exterior is constructed of roughly dressed, squared and coursed Moel y Gest granite boulders, with late 19th-century freestone dressings to the windows. Slate roofs cover the structure. It is designed in the Gothic style.

The three-stage west tower features angle buttresses. An arched doorway with voussoirs provides the main entrance to the church, now with modern outer doors. A tower entrance is located up steps in the north wall, and a two-light window sits above, with blind recesses to the north and south. A moulded cornice precedes the bell stage, which has splayed angles with incised crosses and paired foiled lancet windows on the primary faces, with clock faces or matching roundels above, set below a moulded cornice. An embattled parapet tops the tower, leading to a rendered-over-brick spire with two tiers of lucarnes.

The nave has three bays, moulded stone eaves, and a shallow pitched roof. The windows consist of paired plate-traceried lights within freestone surrounds, featuring voussoirs and hood moulds. The remains of lower, earlier openings are visible below the later windows. The shallow transepts have close-eaved roofs, the result of a 1958 restoration, and similar windows. A lean-to vestry with a long porch adjoins the south transept to the east. The east window, of plate-traceried design with three lights, also shows evidence of a predecessor.

The inner doors at the west entrance are possibly original, featuring paired, simply traceried doors with quatrefoils pierced in the mid-rail. The interior is relatively simple, featuring a shallow roof with five trusses, including curved braces to the collar, short king posts, and struts. The nave and short chancel are not structurally separated; the boundary is marked by late 19th-century raised steps with mosaic inlay by J C Edwards of Ruabon.

Notable fittings include simple communion rails, and a fine altar and reredos designed by C R Ashbee and carved by Emile de Vynck, a Belgian carver living in Pentrefelin. This ensemble was commissioned in memory of Randall Casson, agent to the Tremadoc estate between 1896 and 1911, and installed in 1917, displaying a Renaissance style with three articulated panels between pilasters ornamented with stylised foliage, urns, and vine trails. An inscription is present in the central panel of the altar, with emblems of the passion superimposed on simple shields in the flanking panels. A pulpit, carved by Constance Greaves of Wern Manor around 1895, is in a Jacobean style. A Bates organ from 1857 is located in the north transept. Stained glass depicting the Baptism of Christ, in memory of John Whitehead Greaves and his wife Ellen, was installed in the east window in 1899. A marble memorial tablet on the north wall of the nave commemorates John Williams, agent to Madocks, and was created by Spence & Son of Liverpool.