St Celynin's Old Church

St Celynin's Old Church

St Celynin's Old Church is a Medieval upland parish church located on a high plateau in the rocky uplands at the western extremity of the community, near the Cerrig-y-Ddinas hillfort and approximately three kilometres west of Henryd village. It is accessed via a long and steeply-climbing metalled lane. The church sits within a rubble-walled churchyard which includes, to the southwest, the remains of Ffynnon Gelynin (St Celynin's Well).

The church stands on an early site associated with St Celynin, whose well and habitation are traditionally held to be nearby. The present building consists of a continuous nave and chancel with a north chapel at the eastern end, giving an L-shaped plan. It was formerly balanced by an opposing south chapel, apparently demolished by around 1800. The nave is the earliest section and is generically Medieval, though with a sixteenth-century, post-Reformation roof. The chancel, though subsequently overlaid, is essentially of second-half fourteenth-century date. The southernmost section of the surviving north chapel, together with the now-lost south chapel, were also constructed at this date during a general rejustification of the eastern end. The north chapel was extended northwards probably in the late fifteenth or early sixteenth century when it was re-roofed. New windows appear to have been inserted in the later sixteenth century, at the time when the present nave roof was constructed. The porch is probably late fifteenth or early sixteenth-century.

The church is of rubble construction with slate roofs and a rubble gable parapet at the western end supporting a plain, rebuilt bellcote. The south porch features an arched-braced collar truss roof (partly reconstructed) and a cobbled floor with galleting, with stone seats to the side walls. Two two-light wooden-mullioned windows light the nave and chancel respectively to the right, both post-Reformation; the latter is inserted in an infilled section of wall formerly opening into the south chapel. The lower walls of the south chapel remain visible and reveal surviving plaster internally. The north wall is plain, save for a modern rubble buttress. A three-light fifteenth-century eastern window features cusped, arched lights with moulded and returned label. A small, single-light fourteenth-century window in the eastern wall of the north chapel has an ogee head and original ferrementa (iron fittings). To the right of this, a masonry break is visible, relating to the extension of the chapel northwards. A post-Reformation window to the north gable features original ferrementa.

The interior contains a late fifteenth or early sixteenth-century south door frame of pegged oak with an arched head, fitted with an eighteenth-century door hung on re-used earlier wrought-iron strap hinges. The nave comprises four bays with plain collar-and tie-beam roof trusses, the tie-beams cut off at the wall with trenched purlins. The remains of a western gallery between bays one and two survive, featuring a chamfered tie-beam. The cut-down remains of a fifteenth-century rood screen survive at the eastern end of the nave; this was formerly canopied. A single upper cruck blade remains embedded at wall-plate level at the northeast corner of the nave. A plain Medieval octagonal font sits on a square base. Modern pews occupy the nave. On the north wall is a black marble mural tablet to Thomas Parry of Glynn (died 1773) with a shaped top and base.

The chancel features a seven-bay arched-braced collar truss roof with closely-spaced trusses originally with boarded underside to form a waggon vault. To the left of the eastern window are the remains of a late fourteenth-century niche head with double-roll-moulded jamb. The fifteenth-century window was cut into the existing eastern end arrangement which appears to have originally consisted of a two or three-light window flanked by niches. Late seventeenth or early eighteenth-century altar rails with barley-twist balusters and a contemporary panelled reredos are present. The pulpit is constructed from sections of panelled box-pews. An old stone-flagged floor covers the chancel. On the eastern wall, flanking the eastern window, are painted texts in black-letter Gothic script of early seventeenth-century date: Welsh creed texts (unusually early) with skull and bones and floral marginal motifs, and the inscription in English "Fear God and honour the king."

The chancel is separated from the north chapel (Capel y Meibion) by an open oak screen. The chapel is stepped up and has a part-beaten earth floor. It features a fine two-and-a-half bay arched-braced collar truss roof with pegged, chamfered timbers and two tiers of triple-cusped windbraces.

This is a Medieval church of considerable importance and interest, retaining good interior work and unusually early Welsh painted biblical texts.