Church of St Caradoc

Church of St Caradoc

This church consists of a nave and chancel with a north porch, north transept, vestry, smaller south transept, and tower. It is listed as Grade II*.

The tower is built in large courses of hammer-dressed stone with larger stones selected for the quoins. The remainder of the church is constructed in local sandstone rubble. The chancel walls are battered at the foot. The roofs are of slate with tile ridges, and there are coped gables to the transepts in Forest of Dean stone, with the chancel gable in Bath stone. A finial cross rises at the east end.

The tower has a crenellated parapet with corner buttresses, each topped with copings or stumpy corner finials. Above this rises a low pyramidical roof crowned with a weather vane. The belfry lights sit close to the corbel table of the parapet and consist of pairs of Tudor-arched openings on all four faces, probably original. A staircase turret stands at the northeast corner with slit lights to the stairs. At mid height of the tower is a roll-profile string course, and there is a battered low plinth with moulding at its base. The west face has a window of three Tudor-headed lights with a drip mould above. The clock on the east face is by James Walker. An apparent buttress at the angle of the chancel and vestry relates to the passage squint. The very large bellcote for two bells at the east of the nave has several corbels projecting from its base on the east side, with its top weathered in cement.

Early windows survive at the east of the south transept and on each side of the chancel, taking the form of trefoil-headed lancets. One at the north of the nave is mostly blocked by the early addition of a vestry. Most of the remaining windows date from 1860 or 1885. The east window has three lights in Early English style with a simple label mould. To the south of the nave and chancel and in each transept are two- or three-light windows in Decorated style, framed in oolitic limestone. Lancet windows also appear at the north of the nave, west of the north transept, and east of the vestry. The doors in use are nineteenth century: the north porch contains a nineteenth-century door with good ironwork beneath an equilateral arch; the vestry door is also equilateral pointed; the door to the west of the south transept has a four-centred arch. A blocked south doorway to the nave has a wide pointed arch.

The interior features nineteenth-century open timber roofs of pitch-pine with arch-braced collar beam trusses. A low round arch leads to the chancel, and low pointed arches open to the transepts. The tower base forms a vault fully open to the nave. The chancel is wide with one step up at the chancel arch and a further step at the sanctuary. The south transept, known as the Lawrenny chapel, has a floor two steps higher than the nave. A corbel of an earlier roof survives at the left of the north transept arch in the nave.

The tower lacks most of its original timber upper floors, though staging has been erected to support the clock mechanism. The timber belfry floor survives.

The chancel contains two sedilia and a piscina with thirteenth-century trefoiled heads. To the left of the chancel arch is a large passage squint, and to the right a window squint. A stoup recess lies to the right of the north door.

The paving of 1885 is a striking interior feature, executed in Webbs Worcester encaustic tiles. The tiles are highly decorative in the sanctuary and more plainly ornamented in the main floor of the chancel and nave.

The altar is of oak, standing on a stone plinth. The panelled and carved reredos was donated in 1919 and features twin gothic elements at its centre, flanked by a tapestry frieze in two halves illustrating scenes from the life of St Caradoc. Both the reredos and tapestry are donations from the Lort Phillips family of Lawrenny. The pews, pulpit (at the left), and reading desk (at the right) all date from 1885. The pulpit and desk are by Halliday of Windsor. The pews are of deal, stained and varnished, with pitch-pine ends; a few pews from 1860 survive at the rear. A boarded dado runs throughout. A scraped Norman font stands on a circular pillar with a square base rounded at the top.

The window glass of 1885 by Ben Gay of Bristol is plain with coloured edging in the nave and grisaille with the arms of Lort Phillips in the south transept. Two later windows of high quality have been added: the east window, in memory of J F Lort Phillips (died 1926), depicts the angel declaring Christ's resurrection at the empty tomb. The north transept contains a design with St Nicholas and St Gabriel flanking a version of Holman Hunt's painting "Christ, the Light of the World" (1904), commemorating Emmeline Dugdale (died 1909).

In the passage squint on the north side is an arched wall recess with pierced cusping, containing an effigy of a knight from the time of Richard I. The effigy was formerly in the open air, but its original location is unknown. Glynne noted it already in this location by 1867.

The interior contains good wall monuments. To the north of the chancel is a small bronze plaque to Elizabeth Jones (died 1630), in English and Latin, showing a lady at a prayer desk beneath an arch with memento mori imagery of a skull and crossed bones. To the west of the chancel is a Latin memorial to the Reverend William Jones (died 1698), his wife Elizabeth, and their third son John, alongside a Baroque monument to Lewis Barlow (died 1681). This monument features two cherubs pulling apart curtains to reveal the plaque, with an arched pediment. Barlow's tombstone lies adjacent in the floor. To the east of the south transept is the sarcophagus monument of Hugh Barlow (died 1809), bearing the arms of Barlow and Crespigny, cut into a recess below the window beneath a cast-iron beam. At the west of the south transept is a Gothic monument to George Lort Phillips (died 1866) and Isabella (died 1914). In the north of the north transept is a figured marble plaque to Abraham Warr of Little Pencoed (died 1753) and Hannah (died 1797).