St Elidyr's Church

St Elidyr's Church

The main entrance gate is set in a rubble masonry wall on the north side. An iron gate between stone piers features a style and mounting block. Near the porch stands the base of a preaching cross, on which a 17th-century masonry fragment has been erected.

The medieval building comprised a west galilee porch, nave, chancel, north chapel and later vestry, with north and south transepts (the north transept forming the base of the tower). Later additions include a west extension of the galilee, a south porch, and a vestry. The walls are constructed of rubble masonry in local Carboniferous sandstone, with traces of old whitewash visible particularly on the north side. The masonry of the east and south sides, except for the 19th-century extension, is irregularly coursed. On the north side, including the tower, the masonry is uncoursed, with some rendering on the west face of the tower. The porch is built in large rock-faced courses of limestone with chiselled margins, while the vestry at the north of the chapel uses local rubble masonry with limestone quoins. The roofs are slated with red ridge tiles featuring pierced crests and coped gables.

The tower is of local type, unbuttressed and crenellated on a prominent corbel-table, with a stairs turret at the north-west corner having slit openings at each turn. The belfry has slate louvres to the east, west and south. A tall boarded opening faces north, beneath which is a window to the ringing chamber with a large rough arch. A medieval window at ground storey level has two trefoil-headed lights in a square opening.

All windows except those of the tower are 19th-century work. The chapel window is in Perpendicular style; the others are in lancet style, some paired with plate tracery and a roundel. A large blocked aperture in the east wall of the south transept has a nearly flat arched head.

The tower base, south transept, and east part of the nave are steeply vaulted in the local manner without an impost line. The chancel arch is low and narrow with a double chamfer and undercut stop. Two steps ascend to the arch, with one additional step at the sanctuary. The chancel and chapel are paved in black and white chequer tiles. A wide pointed arch leads from the chancel into the Amroth Castle Chapel, which has a boarded barrel ceiling with ribs.

The nave is long and narrow, with an arch to the west of the vaulted part. In the section replacing the galilee porch, the roof is constructed with arch-braced collar beams, the top compartment of the trusses being of trefoil form. The pews date from the 1855 restoration. An oak pulpit stands on a stone pillar against the north pier of the chancel arch. A late Norman font, square in form and covered in sculptured foliage, stands against the south wall of the nave and has a good modern carved cover in late Gothic style.

The wall monuments in the chancel include a set commemorating Rebecca Poyer and her three husbands. A monument of 1725 is framed with square pilasters; one of 1743 has an egg-and-dart frame with Corinthian columns, marble shafts and base, and a cherub in the pediment. Rebecca's own monument, dated 1764, is framed with ramped volutes and a broken pediment on flat pilasters.

The stained glass of the south transept dates to 1882 and the east window to 1890. The nave west window is by R Coomber and was installed in 1993.