Church of St Peris

Church of St Peris

This is a parish church built in roughly coursed rubblestone with ashlar dressings and slate roofs. The building originally had a roughly cruciform plan with transepts, but the transepts were extended eastward to form a square east end, creating the present T-shaped plan. All windows date to the 19th century. The south side of the nave features a wide 20th-century stone porch on the right, with double doors fitted with strap hinges and timber framing set in a gable. The porch has a 3-light ogee cinquefoil-headed window under a square label to the centre, and a broad single-light cinquefoil-headed window to the left with two quatrefoils above, set under a square arch without a label.

The west wall has a narrow ogee cinquefoil-headed window under a square label in its lower part. The upper part is inset and features a gabled bellcote with a cross, coping and chamfered off-sets, housing a pointed arch containing a single bell dated 1610. The south side of the nave has a 3-light ogee cinquefoil-headed window under a square label to the left, and another to the right where it meets the south transept. The south transept has a similar window but with panel tracery above the cinquefoil lights, the whole set within a pointed arch with head-stops.

The eastward projection of the transept rises from a stepped plinth, carried around to the chancel and north transept projection. It has a 2-light cinquefoil-headed window with a sexfoil above, set in a pointed hollow-chamfered arch; an identical window appears on the east wall of the north transept projection. The chancel window is similar to that in the south transept, except the arch is hollow-chamfered. The north transept has an identical window to the south transept. Both the chancel and north transept have crosses set to their gables.

The roof structure is of exceptional quality. The nave has a fine 15th-century chamfered arch-braced roof spanning six and a half bays, with short cusped windbraces to two tiers of flat purlins and exposed flat rafters. Similar roofs of three bays cover the transepts and transept extensions, but without windbraces and with square purlins instead. The trusses of the transept roofs rest on north-south running moulded beams supported on massive 19th-century chamfered piers at the centre and pentagonal stone responds with moulded capitals and bases on the north and south walls. The chancel roof spans two and a half bays and features a boarded wagon roof below an arch-braced structure with moulded ribs. The transept extensions have moulded wall-plates—the north one plain, the south one embattled.

A screen at the west end of the nave is cut down from a 15th- or early 16th-century rood screen. It has six cinquefoil-headed lights on either side of central square-headed openings, with 19th-century stained glass panels inset into the lights. Mortises to the top of the screen indicate the former positions of rood figures. A 18th-century almsbox with three locks has been hollowed out at the base of the screen on the south side, and the position of two formerly fixed seats can be seen below it.

The interior features a pointed south doorway completely plastered, with a 19th-century ribbed door and brass door furniture. A 19th-century octagonal panelled font stands directly opposite. The Victorian stone pulpit has a trefoil-shaped panel to its front containing a marble quatrefoil with the symbols of the four Evangelists, and stiff-leaf carving to the top. The 19th-century altar rails, lectern and two reading desks are complemented by a communion table that, whilst Victorian, re-uses some 17th-century woodwork and is flanked by two 18th-century chairs. The stained glass in the east window is signed by W Aikman and was given by John Christopher Lloyd Williams in 1926. The floor is laid in stone flags throughout, except for encaustic tiles within the altar enclosure.

The church contains several wall memorials. A pedimented marble wall tablet on the north wall of the nave commemorates Griffith Ellis of Hafoty, Dinorwic (died 1860), who served as superintendent of Thomas Assheton Smith's extensive slate quarries for 46 years. A similar tablet on the south wall honours John Reed Davies and Hugh Ellis Davies, who died in South Africa in 1882 and 1891 respectively. The south wall also bears a brass plaque of 1779 to the wife, son and daughter of Reverend John Morgan (died 1801), curate of Llanberis, who is commemorated by an adjacent slate wall tablet. A polished slate wall tablet honours Robert Lloyd Williams (died 1870), and a marble war memorial records those who fell in 1914-19.