Church of St Meilig

Church of St Meilig

Built from mixed local stones, prominently calcareous shale, with Bath stone dressings and a slate roof between raised gables. The building comprises a nave with a south porch, a chancel with a vestry on the north side, and a west tower.

The south porch is in early Decorated style, featuring a moulded outer arch with hood mould and nook shafts. Low buttresses align with the front, and moulded gabled springers support the coped gables. Iron gates open onto a floor of quarry tiles. The interior has side benches and an open roof. The boarded inner door to the nave has decorative hinges. Two limestone windows with plate tracery and varied pierced heads have hood mouldings with carved terminals, with discontinuous string courses beneath each. Moulded stone eaves complete the porch.

The chancel contains lancets with trefoiled heads and a priest's door with a moulded head and hood mould with dropped ends. A cusped 4-light traceried window occupies the east wall. The tower comprises three stages, the top stage rebuilt in the 19th century. Early slit windows of two phases are now blocked; a 19th-century window appears on the west face between diagonal corner buttresses. Two light bell openings pierce the upper section, with a moulded string at the base of the crenellated parapet.

The nave contains four bays with an impressive open roof on arch-braced collar beam trusses springing from wall corbels. Each bay is divided by secondary trusses on higher corbels, with boarded-over rafters and ashlars. The walls are plastered and whitewashed. A door to the tower has a heavy dropped hood mould and a window above—a relic of medieval form but provided with a 19th-century stone balustrade. A tall chancel arch on impost columns springs from corbels, with a small east window above it. The chancel is raised two steps. An open trussed rafter roof with scissor braces and a deep oak cornice pierced with trefoils covers the chancel. Tiles pave the floor. A further step rises to the sanctuary. There is neither piscina nor aumbry. A narrow door with a moulded 2-centred head leads to the vestry.

The pulpit, on the south side, is octagonal limestone, approached by six steps with a carved oak handrail on twisted iron supports. A freestanding lectern stands nearby. The font by the south door is a 19th-century octagonal bowl carved with ballflowers, fleurons and chequer panels, raised on four clustered columns. An earlier 13th-century font—a simple round bowl with a horizontal flat central cordon—was recovered and reset at the west end in 1955. The organ dates from 1880 and was restored by Henry James of London. An important 11th-century cross slab, said originally to have stood at Croes feilig and set up in the churchyard in the 12th century, was reset in the church in 1956 at the west end. It bears a bold wheel-cross on one face enriched with lozenge panels, and a similar but plainer cross without the ring on the rear.

Windows include a second window on the north (1942, in Victorian tradition), an east window (after 1852, memorial to Henry Beavan), and some modern glass. The south side contains Christ with children (to William Elmslie, died c.1853 in China) and Christ walking on waters (commemorating Captain R. Collinson's survival of the arctic expedition of the ship Enterprise). The north side holds a memorial to Octavia Ramsey of Maesllwch Castle, died 1850.

Wall monuments include various examples reset from the previous church. In the chancel: a limestone Gothic aedicule (c.1870) to Hugh Beavan of Brynrhydd House, died 1837; a white marble sarcophagus relief on black ground by I.E. Thomas of London to John Pugh of Porthgoley, died 1824; a draped casket over white marble tablet against veined marble, also by I.E. Thomas, to Ann Pugh of Porthgoley, died 1846; a Gothic surround to marble tablet to John Pugh of Gare (Gaer), died 1788; and white marble on grey to Ann Gunter and William of Abergavenny, died 1805 and 1808 (descendants of Sir Peter Gunter of Tregunter). On the south side of the chancel: a tablet with carved ends on gabled black field to Thomas Powell of Traveley, died 1846, with arms above; and a white tablet on black field to John Phillips of Brynrhydd and London, died 1817. In the nave on the south side, a Gothic limestone aedicule to Captain Arthur Beavan, died 1842 in Hong Kong, and family. On the north side, a round-headed cusped stone surround to marble tablet to Reverend John Williams, died 1853. A Great War tablet is also present.

Against the west wall stands a canvas Royal Arms of George III and one donation board.