Church of Saint Ilar

Church of Saint Ilar

An Anglican parish church built of rubble stone with slate roofs, comprising a nave and chancel in one, a west tower, a 19th-century south porch, and a north vestry.

The tower is broad with a battered base. It has a west-facing recessed pointed doorway with ashlar voussoirs, renewed in 1874, and above it a 1874 two-light pointed window with a quatrefoil in the head, and a small single light above that. A northeast stair projection has two small loop lights. The bell-openings, dating to 1874, are single pointed cusped lights with louvres. The tower is topped by a battlement without a corbel course below, with 19th-century rock-faced stone coping. Above sits a recessed slate octagonal short spire with a weathercock. A buttress at the southeast marks the joint with the nave.

The nave windows, dating to 1874, are ashlar flush two-light openings with trefoils in the heads. A 19th-century iron cross on the ridge marks the division between nave and chancel, and a stone cross stands on the east gable. The north wall has a window on each side of a blocked door with a pointed arch of squared stone voussoirs, these windows being two-light with trefoils in pointed heads. A straight joint to the left of the second window marks where the vestry and bier house begin above.

The chancel north side has a lean-to vestry with an external chimney on the north wall featuring a battered base and set-offs, flanked by lancet windows. The gables to east and west are coped. A lean-to bier house on the west has a shouldered-headed doorway to its north end. The chancel north also has a small eroded medieval lancet. The east end features a 1874 three-light window with three foiled circles in the head and stone voussoirs. The south side has a blocked pointed chancel door to the right with squared stone voussoirs to the head, two 19th-century two-light nave windows with trefoils in the heads, and another blocked pointed door with squared stone voussoirs partly obscured by the porch.

The south porch appears mostly to date to 1874 and features a coped gable, an ashlar pointed entry, a trefoil gable light, and a pair of wooden gates with a roundel pierced top rail. Inside, the porch has an open barrel roof and a chamfered pointed south door with double board doors and iron hinges.

Housed within the porch is a fine 9th to 10th-century Maesmynach Stone, moved in 1958 from Castle Hill, possibly part of a cross shaft decorated with Celtic interlace pattern. Also in the porch is a 19th-century ashlar font removed in 1988 from the disused church of Llanfihangel Rhostie at Rhosygarth.

The tower contains a medieval plastered vault and a small north door leading to a winding stone stair. There are two bells: one dating to 1800 and another removed from the derelict church at Rhosygarth and dated to around 1350.

The nave and chancel share a single roof of eleven closely-set trusses with high collars and kingposts. The chamfered principals are carried down and ended with small carved stops. Axial bracing runs from the king-posts to the ridge. Double purlins with windbracing appear in all three tiers: full lozenges in the upper two tiers and half lozenges in the lowest tier. The roof is substantially restored, but several of the principals and some of the windbracing appear medieval. The two chancel trusses are 19th-century, simpler and without king-posts, and there is no windbracing in the last two bays. Two medieval bosses affixed to a chancel truss suggest a lost 15th-century barrel ceiling, which it was hoped to restore.

The walls are plastered, with a segmental 19th-century arch over the south door. One step leads to the chancel, with another in line with a pointed north door into the vestry. The sanctuary has an encaustic tile floor. The vestry contains a reset holy water stoup, mentioned by Meyrick as formerly being in the porch.

The church contains a massive 13th or 14th-century conglomerate stone font with seven panelled sides and a deep splayed underside, mounted on a 19th-century pedestal. The fittings are of Danzig oak, designed by R K Penson and made by Farrimond & Co of Chester, executed in simple, well-designed Gothic carpentry. These include pews with pierced circles in the bench ends, a pulpit with tracery panels, chancel stalls, a reading desk, and altar rails with a band of trefoils in roundels. A brass eagle lectern dates to around 1880. A simple iron Gothic altar rail with four standards was also designed by Penson. The reredos of 1895, by Jones & Willis, features blind Gothic tracery to its panels with texts on either side.

Memorials include a slate plaque to Reverend Moses Roberts (1735) with a crude incised cherub head, and a slate plaque to Reverend John Morgan (died 1762) and his wife (died 1763). A crocketted Gothic Bath stone memorial with two engraved metal plates commemorates the Williams family of Castle Hill to 1862, including John Williams (died 1806) and J N Williams (died 1832). A plaque to Reverend Peter Felix (died 1861) is signed by Dodson of Shrewsbury. An Arts and Crafts style beaten copper plaque commemorates L P Pugh of Abermad, died 1908.

The stained glass includes an east window depicting the Ascension with an Angel at the tomb and an Appearance to Saint Mary Magdalen, dating to 1961; a south window showing Saints Ilar and David (1967) and a small north lancet in the chancel with a Pentecostal dove and chalice (1967), all made by Celtic Studios of Swansea.