Church of the Holy Rood and Saint Teilo

Church of the Holy Rood and Saint Teilo

A Roman Catholic church built in grey limestone laid in irregular courses, with Bath stone windows and red Broseley tiled roofs. The building comprises a nave with a thin Pembrokeshire-type north-west tower and a chancel. The north aisle was never constructed. The west end is marked by the tower on the left with a step back in the wall and coping to the right, designed to suggest a south aisle, with a coped gable and cross finial above.

The west front features a tall four-light pointed window with flowing ogee tracery and hoodmould, positioned above a later twentieth-century full-width lean-to deep porch with a central entry. A sloping buttress to the right is mostly covered by the porch roof. The tower is thin with a plinth, battered sides, a coped embattled parapet, and a lead spirelet. There is a single pointed small bell-light on each side and a small loop opening on the west and north at mid-height.

The north side displays a stub wall for the unbuilt north aisle. The first bay of the north wall is limestone with an ogee-pointed north door and hoodmould, featuring double doors with wrought iron hinges. Another stub wall to the left is followed by a rendered temporary wall with four two-light wooden windows. A tall north-east chimney has an ashlar gabled cap.

The south side of the nave comprises five bays with two-light ogee-traceried pointed windows and hoodmoulds, separated by stepped buttresses. The first bay is blank; the second and fourth have full-length windows; the third bay has a window cut short by a low lean-to with two tiny windows; and the fifth bay projects as a chapel with a catslide roof and a short two-light window. The nave's east gable is not coped but has shoulders; the southern shoulder carries tiled coping, while the northern shoulder carries the chimney. A blank east wall faces the south-east chapel.

The chancel has a lower roof but high eaves, with a single light to the south wall. The east end displays a coped shouldered gable with sheer buttresses on each side, each carrying an ashlar gable with a sill course between. Under these sits a pair of tall narrow single lights with ogee tracery under quatrefoils. In the gable is an ogee niche with crocketted finials and a statue of Saint Teilo, dated 1893. The north side contains a Tudor arch in the wall, left for an intended opening. A lean-to vestry with a monopitch roof is built against the east side of a wall running out from the nave's north-east corner.

Interior

The pointed original west door gives access to the interior. The painted plastered walls rise to a five-bay steep arch-braced scissor-truss roof with thin hammerbeams on corbels. A four-bay north arcade, now immured in the wall, comprises three ashlar octagonal piers with moulded caps and bases, double-chamfered arches and hoodmoulds with three ornate leaf-carved corbels. The responds lack the moulded capitals. At the west end is a timber gallery of three bays on two chamfered posts, fronted by narrow vertical panels over a brattished beam, reached by stone stairs in the tower. A pointed north door and an ogee piscina stand to the right. A pointed east vestry door with a hoodmould on leaf stops is positioned to the left of the chancel arch.

The chancel is reached through a high pointed moulded chancel arch with a hood and carved head stops. The narrow short chancel features a panelled segmental pointed roof with sunburst bosses marked IHS. The south chapel is defined by a segmental-pointed arch and lean-to roof, with a lower lean-to recess in the south wall for a Lady altar and two tiny windows.

Fittings include a later twentieth-century replacement altar and reredos. Two statues of Saint Joseph and the Sacred Heart, dated 1893 and originally at the base of the chancel arch, now stand on corbels on the wall each side. The south chapel retains a shelf, tabernacle, and a corbel with a carved stone angel from its former altar. A Lady altar of alabaster features a marble statue and Gothic panelling.

Stained glass windows include two east windows of 1929 depicting the Crucifixion and Resurrection. The nave's south windows show Saints Mary Magdalen and Paul; the Annunciation over the Lady altar; and Saints Peter and John. The south chapel has a two-light window of Saints David and Teilo. The west window displays four saints on clear glass: Saints Stephen, David Lewis, John Lloyd, and Philip Evans. The original west door carries etched glass doors depicting the Holy Rood and Saint Teilo.