Church of St Tydecho

Church of St Tydecho

This is a Grade II* listed church built from local slate rubble with a slate roof. It comprises a wide-bodied nave and narrower chancel, with a north porch added in 1641 and initialled G H.

The eastern window is a 4-light window with slate mullions and transom beneath a 3-centred head, probably of the 17th century. There are 2 rectangular windows to each side, probably 18th century, each with 2-light gabled dormer windows above. A small square-headed lancet sits on the north side of the chancel. A blocked door with a stone lintel on cyma-moulded corbels, probably inserted in the 17th century, provided direct access to the sanctuary. A further blocked window and segmental-headed doorway, also blocked, lie between the windows.

The porch is stone-encased but is substantially a timber-framed structure with heavy vertical posts and solid angle struts to the lintel, all ovolo-moulded, with 2 raking struts to the principal rafters. It has been decorated with a fossil mammoth tusk and an epiphysis of a limb bone, found between the church and river. The inner truss is similar but bears the incised date AD 520. There is 17th-century panelling under the slate roof. At the west end is a boarded door to the vestry and two 2-light dormers. A large weatherboarded timber tower, inscribed in perforated timber boarding on the south face reading "SOLI DEO SACRUM ANNI CHRISTI MDCXL", formerly also read "VENITE CANTEM[us domino] A.D.1640 HONOR DEO IN EXCELSIS". It is finished with a pyramidal roof and weather vane. On the north side are two 3-light timber-transomed windows to the vestry and 1 leaded rectangular window with a dormer over, with further blocked openings.

Interior

The entrance door leads to a cross passage, with the vestry divided off on the left and doors into the central aisle. The nave is of 5 roof bays with collar beam trusses and straight slightly cusped raking struts to the principal rafters. These carry 3 tiers of purlins. The tie beams appear to be medieval, reconstructed as trusses in the 17th century, with exposed rafters. The chancel is of 3 bays with 17th-century segmental-arched trusses with deep collars. The principals extend down the walls to angled corbels and are embellished with a carved unicorn and lion rampant (post-1603). The walls throughout are plastered with slate floors and one step into the sanctuary. At the rear, the pews are dramatically raked either side of the entrance to the nave to climb over the entrance passage and vestry. The timber bell tower is supported on large jowled timber posts and is cross-braced at each stage. A timber bellframe carries three bells.

Fittings include an oak pulpit of 20th-century date, plain and octagonal; an iron altar rail with a square oak communion rail; and a lectern of 1965. The font, near the back of the church, is of black marble, octagonal, on a slightly bulbous baluster foot, dated 1734 below the bowl and a gift of Sir John Mytton of Halston. The organ, raised high above the entrance, is of 1898 with gilded pipework. Stained glass in the south window commemorates Blanche Bellock. Three bells date from 1642, 1685 and 1738.

Monuments

The nave, north side, contains from the west: (a) a tall white marble stele with cornice and palmette crest behind a square altar with triglyph frieze and bobbin supports, all on acanthus consoles, by Gibson of Liverpool, to the Reverend Robert Davies, died 1827, his wife and 7 children; (b) a Gothic memorial aedicule of white marble on black fossil limestone brackets, also by Gibson, with an inner pointed arch and inscription to Dr John Davies, scholar and translator of the Bible into Welsh, and an "able exponent of the language and antiquities of Britain, laying open its annals". He was born in Llanferres, Denbighshire in 1564 and was rector here from 1604 for 30 years until his death in 1644; (c) slate framed in wood to Evan Jones of Dinas, son of a shopkeeper, died 1825, with wife and family. On the south side: (d) slate with a moulded horned timber frame to Richard Williams of Treflan, died 1805; (e) a sarcophagus of white marble against a grey field with fluted urn over, by Patteson of Manchester, to Mary Astley of Cwmllecoediog, died 1832; in the west window reveal, (f) a deeply lettered slate slab to Richard Pughe of Machynlleth, surgeon, died 1809, and family including William Pughe, rector of Mallwyd, died 1852. In the porch: (g) a slate slab with a bead margin to Richard Griffiths, Gelli-wen, died 1837, and on the exterior of the church, inset in the south wall, a small slate panel (h) to Robert Vaughan of Cwm-glan-mynach, died 1693.