Church of St Dyfrig

Church of St Dyfrig

A single-chamber church with nave and chancel, constructed of rubble stone beneath a slate roof with raised stone copings. The church is entered through a late medieval porch positioned to the left of centre on the south wall, and features a west bellcote and south porch.

The late medieval south porch has a steeply pitched gabled roof with diagonal buttresses. The shallow pointed-arched doorway is decorated with 3 orders of mouldings and chamfered jambs with bar stops. Narrow lancets flank the porch opening. Inside, the porch roof contains narrow arched-brace trusses, a flagstone floor, and splayed reveals to the lancets. Double boarded doors with studs and hinges sit beneath a chamfered pointed-arched head.

The exterior south wall features mainly paired trefoiled lancets in plate tracery within square surrounds, and shows evidence of earlier windows. To the left of the porch is a single lancet; further left is a pointed-arched doorway with chamfered surround containing a studded boarded door, probably leading to a former school. To the right of the porch are 3 pairs of lancets, separated by stepped angle buttresses.

The east end displays a large 5-light Perpendicular window with transom. The lights have trefoiled heads and the window is crowned with a stone hoodmould. The north wall, partly built into the bank with a slightly battered base, contains 3 pairs of lancets, each with an angle buttress to its left. The west end is roughcast and contains a 2-light pointed-arched window with lights in plate tracery featuring trefoiled heads and a stylised quatrefoil. A gabled bellcote with stepped sides supports a single arched opening for the bell at the apex.

The interior contains a fine late medieval 8-bay roof with arched-brace trusses, 3 rows of purlins, cusped windbraces, and wall-posts resting on stone corbels.

A Perpendicular chancel screen of moulded wooden openwork separates the nave from the chancel. The rood loft has been removed and replaced by brattishing. The screen has a wide central opening infilled with an archway in 1864, flanked by 7 narrow bays, each containing a cinquefoiled ogee light above panelling. The nave has a central aisle with furnishings probably dating to 1864, including pews with bench ends decorated with recessed trefoils, an octagonal wooden pulpit with openwork arches and recessed quatrefoils, and a reading table in similar style.

A 15th-century font occupies the centre of the west end—a plain octagonal stone bowl on an octagonal stem with broached angles at the base. Behind the font is a screen wall surmounted by a frieze of open trefoils and containing a shallow-arched doorway. This wall supported a gallery, beneath which a school is said to have been located.

Steps lead up from the chancel screen to the chancel and sanctuary, which has an encaustic tile floor. The chancel contains choir stalls with trefoil decoration, a moulded wooden altar rail supported on iron posts, and a wood-panelled reredos. A Perpendicular piscina with a trefoiled ogee-arched head is positioned on the south side near the altar rail.

A fine classical-style wall monument on the south side of the chancel bears a tablet with a triangular pediment broken by a large urn, flanked by scrollwork and an angel beneath. It commemorates William and Margaret Pughe of Mathafarn, who died in 1719 and 1714 respectively. A slate tablet near the pulpit on the north side records Sylfan Evans, rector from 1818 to 1903 and first professor of Welsh at Aberystwyth.

The east window retains medieval glass in its upper lights. The central light shows the Virgin and Child enthroned, dated to 1461–83 by the presence of Edward IV's 'Rose en soleil' badge. The tier of lights above the transom depicts Christ crucified between 4 saints, also probably of this date. The lights beneath the transom contain 19th-century geometrical stained glass.