Parish Church of St. Mary

Parish Church of St. Mary

This is a small, double-aisled church built in rubble with slated roofs and sandstone dressings. It is listed at Grade II* for its historical and architectural significance.

Exterior

The church features leaded windows with simple chamfering and plain labels; some are shared between lights. The eaves have shaped corbelling, and the gable parapets are coped with gablets above kneelers. A single-storey gabled porch with overlapping parapet coping and an iron cross to the apex projects from the entrance. The porch entrance has a pointed arch with chamfering and a plain label, with a similar inner arch containing ribbed and boarded doors and a flagged floor. To the right of the porch are two twin-light lancet windows with a simple Gothic buttress between them. Diagonal buttresses are positioned at the corners of the building.

The east end has a triple-light window of the same style, topped with a Celtic cross at the gable apex, while the west gable displays a plain cross. The north aisle has a shallower-pitched roof than the south, separated from it by a large octagonal pier with a tapering crocketted finial at the east end. A 3-stage gabled bellcote rises from the east gable end with a decorative iron cross above it. The north wall contains two lancets with a trefoil oculus above, and three 2-light windows similar to those elsewhere. Diagonal and dividing buttresses support the corners and spaces between the windows. A blocked flat-arched window and a blocked original Tudor-arched north entrance (partly obscured by a buttress) are visible on the north side.

The vestry adjoins to the west, stepped down and narrower than the main building. It is constructed in the same manner with a lancet window to the north and a pointed-arched entrance to the south with a partly-glazed contemporary boarded door. A plain chimney with triangular capping crowns the west gable apex, with slated verges to the west.

Interior

The south nave contains an early 15th-century 4-bay roof of arched-braced collar truss type with end trusses and two tiers of long, straight windbraces. The soffits and contemporary purlins have chamfered detail. Nineteenth-century oak and pine pews with trefoil benchends fill the nave. A 19th-century Neo-Norman font stands on a stepped slate plinth; it has a cylindrical basin, square base and top supported on four cable-moulded columns with simple capitals and chip-carved decoration. The windows have wide, segmentally-arched splays with figurative stained glass of around 1880 and 1932. Gothick altar rails with pierced and cusped tracery flank the east window. Two plain oval marble mural plaques are positioned either side of the east window: the left commemorates Thomas Jones, Rector (died 1759) and family, and the right commemorates Jane Hughes of Gomanog (died 1778).

The north and south aisles are separated by a 19th-century rendered arcade of four pointed arches with plain bases and abaci and chamfered detail. The north aisle roof is an early 16th-century 4-bay arched-braced collar-truss roof similar to the south nave but with cusped, curved windbraces and stopped-chamfered detail to the soffits and purlins. Crenellated and moulded brattishing in two tiers rises above the wall plate on the north side. Pews match those in the nave, and a Gothick reading desk similar to the altar rails stands in the aisle. An octagonal pulpit on base is a 19th-century composite piece of pine with reused sections of mid-17th-century geometric panelling, carved angels, putti and grotesque consoles, probably originally from a domestic context. One panel bears the carved date 1653; further sections of this work are incorporated in raised pews at the west end, which have Gothic gabled finials facing south and stand before a 19th-century organ with clustered pipes in a turret-like arrangement and crenellated mahogany sham-battlements. Figurative stained glass includes representations of Llywelyn Fawr and Princess Joan (dated 1932) on the north wall. The vestry interior is plain.