Church of Saints Mael and Sulien

Church of Saints Mael and Sulien

The church is constructed in local uncoursed axe-dressed masonry with a slate roof finished with a red tile ridge and coped gables. A stump of a finial cross survives above the east gable. Above the west gable is a two-opening bellcote in coursed stonework, decorated with much-eroded stone cresting. A 20th-century vestry extends from the north side, built in similar materials with a plain coped gable and stone chimney. The lower part of the west wall is notably thickened to 2 metres, with a weathered offset at the base of the gable.

The east window is Perpendicular with five lights and a simple label mould turned out at the ends. The two-light nave south window is probably contemporary with it. The main south-facing nave window is Georgian, with jamb caps and a keyed round arch, and retains an iron frame at the rear to support quarry glazing. To the left of the porch is a pair of trefoil-headed lights under a flat head. The main doorway within the porch has a slightly dropped mediaeval pointed arch with a simple label turned out at the ends, and the door is nail-studded. The west door is similarly in a slightly dropped arch with an external flight of steps. The north side contains a three-light Tudor window to the nave and a four-light similar window to the chancel. The post-mediaeval porch has a round exterior open arch, while the 20th-century vestry has square-headed openings.

Entry is via the south porch or directly by the west door. To the right of the south door is an interior water stoup. The floor rises noticeably towards the east. Two steps in the middle of the nave separate the stone-flagged entrance and baptistery area to the west from the pewed area to the east. A further two steps with side handrails mark the commencement of the chancel. The roof is 19th-century, continuous across 17 bays, and features arch-braced collar beams.

The joinery is mostly or entirely 20th-century, comprising a pulpit at right and prayer desk and lectern at left. The altar has three carved front panels. The reredos consists of three panels with blind Gothic tracery, and wall panelling extends along the north and south side walls of the sanctuary. The windows contain plain quarry glazing except for jumbled mediaeval glass gathered in the centre of the east window. The font, positioned in the lower part of the nave, is square and stands on a 19th-century base.

At the sanctuary steps to the left is an Easter Sepulchre with a steep-sided and uneven arch evidently constructed from re-used straight stones. On the soffit of the stones is a rudimentary attempt at 14th-century ball-flowers.

A Classical wall memorial at the left of the chancel, featuring ramped scrolls and arms in the break of the pediment, records Humphrey Parry of Pwllhalog (1744). Against the north wall of the lower part of the nave is a collection of mediaeval slabs and fragments including a 14th-century four-circle cross slab formerly in the church floor, a large grave slab to Gwaialima wife of Gronw with an ornate incised cross head on a shaft and calvary, a small 14th-century sepulchral slab to Howell, and a fragment of a Crucifixion rescued from the vicarage wall. An iron-bound 17th-century parish chest with three locks also survives.