Church of St Mary

Church of St Mary

This is a medieval parish church of grade II* importance, built to a long plan with a continuous nave and chancel of five bays and a compact vestry on the north side. The building is constructed of roughly coursed rubble masonry with freestone dressings. Both the north and south walls are buttressed with widely spaced stepped raking buttresses, while the west wall has similar buttresses at each angle. The roof is modern slate with stone copings, a single west bellcote topped by a simple cross finial, and a weathered gable finial to the east.

The west doorway is pointed-arched with a hoodmould, and the door itself is boarded with large decorative hinges. Above it in the gable apex sits a single lancet window. The east window is a pointed-arched opening of three lights with cusped tracery, a hoodmould, and carved head terminals. The long lateral walls to north and south contain single and paired lancet windows; the two easternmost windows on the north wall and the westernmost window on the south wall have hoodmoulds. The north vestry contains a reset 16th-century window of two lights with a rectangular frame.

The church retains an exposed roof. The chancel preserves six arch-braced collared trusses on wall posts down to shaped purlins, dating to an extensive rebuilding around 1500. These are accompanied by contemporary paired purlins with cusped windbraces. The four trusses to the west are similarly detailed but less heavy than those to the east and feature a more rounded soffit with angled braces above the collar that are cusped.

Most of the interior dates to a mid-19th-century rebuild, but the church retains a 17th-century rood screen with three bays to each side of a central opening. The lower part is boarded, with the upper rail supported on shaped balusters and a carved naturalistic frieze above. The screen is thought to have been rebuilt in the 19th century with tracery added below the upper rail. The chancel is raised by two steps, with the sanctuary a further step higher and fitted with a moulded rail on twisted stanchions with foliate brackets. A small piscina is set in a trefoil-headed recess in the south wall of the sanctuary. Entry to the north vestry is through a chamfered pointed-arched doorway in the north wall of the chancel. The sanctuary floor contains encaustic tiles, while the vestry has a modern stone floor with a memorial stone to Ellis Wynne of Lasynys, rector in the early 18th century.

The octagonal pulpit is built of dressed stone on a stepped raking plinth with trefoil-headed recesses at the angles. A 16th-century octagonal font stands at the west end of the nave, and a rough stone water stoup is set into the north wall. The pews are simple 19th-century box pews, and a simple chamfered screen closes off the west end of the nave.

All stained glass dates to the mid-19th-century rebuild. The east window depicts Christ at the nativity, crucifixion, and ascension, installed in memory of Edmund Prys, Archdeacon of Merioneth, in 1858. The central window in the south wall contains four portrayals of Christ and commemorates Ellis Wynne, who died in 1735.

The church contains numerous memorials. At the west end of the north wall is a restored slate slab to the Owens of Crafnant, dated 1520. To its right is another slate slab to the Owen family commemorating the children of John Owen (died 1783) and Anne Owen (died 1778): William (died 1757), Anne (died 1758), Robert (died 1770), Elizabeth (died 1770), Owen (died 1775), Maurice (died 1778), and William (circa 1783). This memorial was erected by a surviving son, John, in 1822.

Further east on the north wall is a marble memorial to Elizabeth, wife of John Owen of Crafnant, who died in 1834. Below this is an ornate carved wooden tablet. Towards the east end of the north wall of the nave are two further marble memorials: the first to John Richards of Llanfair Isaf (died 1829) and his wife Jane (died 1847), together with their third son David and his wife Jane (died 1828); the second to Gwen, wife of R H Richards, also of Llanfair Isaf, who died in 1841.

The south wall carries several 20th-century memorial tablets and a wooden trefoil-headed board listing the rectors of the parish to the present day.