Parish Church of St Mary

The Parish Church of St Mary is a medieval parish church, largely rebuilt in the 18th century. Its construction incorporates blue lias stone, with ashlar facing on the west tower, chancel, and organ chamber, and rubble elsewhere. The roofs are slate, with a hipped roof to the chancel east end. The church comprises a broad aisleless nave, a south porch, an embattled chancel, a north organ chamber, and a low vestry. A plaque in the porch indicates a substantial rebuilding of the nave occurred between 1702 and 1703. Windows, renewed during later restorations, are mostly flat-headed mullioned with arch-headed lights, reflecting 17th-century styles. The south door has a post-Reformation segmental-pointed head. Another plaque from 1639 may refer to alterations or a new porch. The current porch is an early 20th-century Gothic addition, featuring carved heads of Archbishop Davidson and Bishop Owen. The west tower collapsed in 1705, was rebuilt to a height of 40 feet in 1711 and completed in 1748. It is a large tower with minimal Gothic detail, featuring single bell openings and a low west door, and prominent diagonal stepped buttresses on the front angles. A northeast stair tower is also present. The chancel, an exceptional example of 15th-century Perpendicular style for West Wales, has ashlar traceried three-light windows, is three bays in length, and is buttressed and embattled, with most of its pinnacles now removed. The northeast corner incorporates a stair tower. A High Victorian organ chamber of 1877, extensively dressed in red brick, and a low, flat-roofed vestry, likely dating to around 1926, are located on the north side; one original window was lost during the organ chamber’s construction.

Inside, the nave is plastered and features an 18th-century five-sided plastered ceiling. Corbelling in the nave walls and a moulded pointed niche, possibly a door head, are also present. A northeast rood stair door is visible. The 15th-century chancel arch has chamfered piers and a moulded arch. The chancel contains two surviving finely carved stone roof corbels (illustrated by Meyrick in 1810) and a 1926 panelled timber ceiling. A fine ogee-headed crocketted piscina is also a notable feature. The church is furnished with extensive pale oak fittings from the early to mid-20th century, alongside two stained-glass windows from 1924-5 by Walter Wilkinson. The east window retains fragments of 15th-century glass, remnants of a larger medieval scheme which was dispersed and lost in a fire in 1807. Three stained-glass chancel windows from 1906, featuring floral plaques, and a nave stained-glass window from 1910 are also present, along with a north chancel window dated around 1950. The font is panelled and dates back to the 15th century. Various marble plaques, dating from the late 18th to mid-19th centuries, are by Wood of Bristol, Phillips of Haverfordwest, and W Behnes of London.