Church of St Cynidr and St Peter

Church of St Cynidr and St Peter

A grey sandstone ashlar church with pecked dressings and a 20th-century interlocking tile roof set between raised gables. The building comprises a three-bay nave, a two-bay chancel, and a west tower of four stages, with a vestry-organ chamber added at right angles on the north side of the chancel. It is constructed in plain Norman revival style, with bays defined by pilaster buttresses carrying a corbel table. The main entrance is a boarded door under a round arch springing from a mid-wall string. Two-light round-headed windows with simple chamfered hoods light the sides, while the west door beneath the tower features two orders of nook shafts with cushion capitals. The east end is lit by three wide-spaced lancets and a large oculus above the lower chancel roof. The tower's bell stage contains three equal recessed arches with the centre one louvred, and large square pinnacles with pyramrical tops rise at each corner above the straight parapet, giving the building its distinctive silhouette.

Interior

The wide nave spans six bays with unplastered walls. The open rafter roof is carried on tie beam trusses bracketed from wall corbels with collar and queen posts, and an arch between the spandrels filled with light geometric timberwork. A wide round-headed chancel arch and a tall arch to the vestry occupy the same plane. The chancel contains three roof bays with hammer beam trusses on brackets supporting an arch to the collar, the sides tied with an iron rod. The sanctuary is raised and tiled.

Fittings include a part-octagonal pulpit on a stone base with a brass handrail and a brass lectern. An openwork iron chancel screen, added in 1881, has a central arch and a canopy supporting a cross with various gilded elements. The organ, built by Norman and Beard in 1910, is set in the inner part of the vestry. The sanctuary rail has turned balusters, and the reredos behind the altar features a Crucifixion against a gold mosaic background by Powell of Blackfriars, flanked by late 19th-century tapestry hangings. Late 19th-century hanging iron lamps illuminate the interior.

The font is octagonal, inscribed W/SHE/1635, with crudely carved roundels and birds on the tapering stem. It was found in a farmhouse in 1844 and brought into the church. It is assumed to originate from the original chapel at Aberllynfi. A 19th-century font made to a similar shape, though less inspired in its execution, stands alongside it.

Stained Glass

The east window contains Resurrection scenes. The north chancel window depicts the Good Shepherd and dates to 1884. Nave south side windows date to 1926, 1891, and two examples from 1900. The west window shows the Woman of Samaria and dates to 1890, bearing the monogram of glassmaker Edward Frampton (1846–1929). The nave oculus displays God in Majesty, with similar glass on the north side including a memorial window of 1933 to Colonel Thomas Wood of Gwernyfed showing Christ with fishermen, possibly by Comper.

Monuments

The chancel contains twenty-three wall tablets in white and grey marbles, including memorials to Edward Allen of the Lodge and family (late 18th to early 19th century), Walbeoff of Penllan (Commander Royal Navy), and Marianne Devereux of Tregoyd (1768)—the latter featuring an urn against a grey marble pyramid set on a corniced panel with oval arms below. The Devereaux and Cornewall-Devereaux families, Viscounts Hereford, are commemorated by monuments by Hartley of Westminster and by L.E. Thomas of London, the London Marble Works, and others, including monuments to the 13th, 14th, 15th, 16th, and 17th Viscounts. A Gothic marble aedicule commemorates Walter Wilkins de Winton of Maesllwch Castle, Member of Parliament, who died in 1840.

The nave contains four monuments on the north side to the Williams family of Trebinshun, including James Williams (1815)—a pilastered white marble panel with draped urn above. A brass commemorates Walter de Winton of Maesllwch Castle, and another honours Samuel Alford, curate and friend of Francis Kilvert the diarist.