Church of St David

Church of St David

The Church of St David is a Grade I listed Perpendicular style parish church comprising a nave and chancel under a single roof, with a south porch. The building is constructed of rubble stone with lighter freestone dressings, and includes late 19th-century red sandstone freestone dressings and quoins. The roof is tiled with a coped gable to the east.

The south porch features red sandstone dressings and a pointed arch on timber posts below a timber-framed gable. To the left of the porch is a single cusped window, and to the right a two-light window, both of late 19th-century date. Below the right-hand window is a weathered memorial tablet to Thomas Havard (died 1827).

A full-height vertical joint separates the nave and chancel. The two-bay chancel has a plinth band, stepped buttresses, and diagonal south-east and north-east buttresses. It features three-light 15th-century south windows and a doorway in the left-hand bay under a four-centred head of 15th-century date but with partly renewed 19th-century dressings and a boarded door. The east window is a three-light 19th-century insertion under a hood mould. The chancel north wall contains a 15th-century three-light window similar to those on the south side. Directly above the vertical joint separating nave and chancel is a tall red sandstone stack with octagonal shaft.

In the nave north wall is a renewed narrow rood light and a narrow pointed medieval window to its right. Further right are two two-light 19th-century windows. The west end has a 14th-century doorway with a continuous chamfer and run-out stops, fitted with 19th-century double boarded doors. The three-light west window is a 19th-century insertion.

A tall, slightly splayed slate-hung bellcote has a boarded belfry with two cusped openings in each face fitted with louvres, and a pyramidal slate roof with weathervane.

The porch roof is of two bays with an arched-brace truss. The pointed 14th-century south doorway has a continuous chamfer and 19th-century boarded doors.

The nave has a seven-bay arched-brace roof on a moulded cornice with two tiers of cusped windbraces. In one bay near the west end, narrower replacement windbraces have been made to accommodate an additional queen-post truss on corbelled brackets, which supports the bellcote. At the east end of the nave is an additional wide bay with a wagon roof having moulded ribs and boarded panels, probably intended to allow a painted ceilure over the rood. The pointed 15th-century chancel arch has wave mouldings to its chamfered responds. The chancel has a ribbed wagon roof on a moulded, castellated cornice with boarded panels. A simple west vestry screen is dated 1924.

The font has an octagonal convex bowl of 14th or 15th-century date on a later octagonal stem and base. Simple pews have shaped ends and the pulpit is polygonal. In the chancel, the front choir stalls have poppy heads to the ends and an open quatrefoil frieze. Rear stalls are plainer. The sanctuary includes 19th-century detail, including a communion rail on twisted brass uprights and an encaustic-tile floor. The east window, dated 1924, depicts the resurrected Christ with two angels.

Numerous wall tablets are present throughout the church. In the chancel south wall is a brass to Anne Thomas (died 1901) by G Hay of Brecon. In the nave south wall, beginning at the east end, are the following memorials: a double inscription panel with shaped apron and surmounted by an urn, to Hugh Evans (died 1834) and his ancestors, by S Morris of Hay; above it a double inscription panel to Hugh Evans (died 1812) and family, by B Aston of Kington; a tablet to Richard Sheen (died 1832) with a panel on a corbelled apron, segmental pediment with flaming urn and two doves; a plainer memorial to Thomas Lewis (died 1845) with a corbelled apron and segmental pediment with urn; a sarcophagus-type wall tablet below an urn commemorating Thomas Minton (died 1820); a plainer tablet commemorating John Harley (died 1822); and the memorial to Henry Jones (died 1839) with a flaming urn and doves, of the same design as that for Richard Sheen. To the right of the south doorway, tablets are less well preserved. A memorial to Margaret Price (died 1824) has two oval panels. Next to it is a more weathered memorial to Jonas Howard (died 1737), and plain memorials to Evan Jones (died 1802) and Anne Howard, with the date weathered. In the nave north wall, beginning at the west end, is a simple classical memorial to Evan Jones (died 1845) with urn on a pediment, by S Loye of Peterchurch; a sarcophagus-type memorial with urn to John Jones (died 1856); plain memorials to Thomas Lewis (died 1736) and Thomas Lewis (died 1781); and a memorial to Mary Price (died 1816) by T Jones of Cusop, with an inscription panel surmounted by a trumpeting angel.