Church of Saint Clydai

Church of Saint Clydai

Parish church built in rubble stone with ashlar dressings and slate roofs. The building comprises a nave with a western tower, a northern porch, a chancel, and a south aisle of equal size to the nave with a parallel roof.

The tower is plain with battered sides and a chamfered string course beneath an embattled parapet. It has single segmental-pointed bell-openings with louvres, a small loop at mid-height on the west side, and a low pointed west doorway with rough stone voussoirs under a flat dripstone, fitted with 19th-century double doors.

The remainder of the church is constructed in coursed local slaty stone, with the upper parts dating to the 19th century. It has steep roofs with ashlar copings, windows, and doors. All openings are fitted with hoodmoulds, with stops left in blocks for carving.

The north side features a porch with a coped shouldered gable and cross finial. The porch has a plinth, low two-step diagonal buttresses, a moulded pointed doorway with hoodmould, boarded double doors, and a small pointed niche above with hoodmould. The nave has a stepped triple lancet window with uncusped lights, tiny spandrel roundels, and a segmental-pointed hoodmould. There is a projection for a rood stair and a pointed two-light window, uncusped, with a roundel in the head and hoodmould. The short chancel has a lower roof, with one small cusped lancet on each side without hoodmould, and a large pointed three-light window to the east with cusped lights and three quatrefoil roundels in the head, hoodmould, and stone voussoirs.

The south aisle is parallel to the nave with three-light pointed windows at the east and west ends, narrower than the chancel's eastern window, featuring uncusped lights and three uncusped roundels in the head. The south side has two three-light windows set to the left, similar to those on the north side.

The interior reveals rubble stone construction. The tower rear has a very low pointed tower arch to the tower vault, approximately 1.75 metres to the apex, with long stone voussoirs. There is a long straight joint to the left, tapering inward, possibly the side of a blocked opening to the right with stone voussoirs, partly behind the end of the nave arcade. Another set of voussoirs appears at mid-height to the right, with a small rectangular opening in the centre. The nave contains five steep arch-braced collar trusses with brattished collars and Y-struts above, standing on ashlar corbels. The north side has a door and two windows in 19th-century ashlar surrounds. To the right of the door is a 13th or 14th-century stoup with three sides divided by two raised strips; the outer sides bear elongated oval relief heads, with a bishop to the right. The recess has a pointed chamfered head. A medieval rood-stair door with original chamfered jambs is located on the north side; the flat lintel has been replaced. Stone steps remain within.

A pointed double-chamfer chancel arch rises from moulded corbelled capitals, the corbels left uncarved. The outer order is continuous to the ground with a bar stop. The floor is laid in slate flagstones. The short chancel has a six-sided boarded and panelled roof. Three steps lead to the sanctuary with slate treads and tiled risers; the sanctuary floor is tiled. A moulded sill band runs below the east window.

The south aisle is similar to the nave, divided by a four-bay arcade with double-chamfered pointed arches on three round columns with moulded capitals and splayed bases, with two similar half-column responds. Similar roof trusses stand on corbels. In the southeast corner of the south aisle is a timber Gothic vestry of the later 19th century, with leaded glazing featuring a band of glazed quatrefoils above. It has a matching half-glazed door.

The church contains a fine cushion-shaped square font with semi-circular faces, each outlined in raised strips and with a vertical stroke bisecting a small semi-circle in the centre below the top line. A pine pulpit of the later 19th century stands on an octagonal shaft base with blind tracery. There is a reading desk with a traceried front. The pews have pierced small quatrefoils in the bench ends. A plain oak lectern dates to 1911. Plain rails stand on four turned columns.

Memorials include a 19th-century plaque on the north wall recording the ancestors of Mariamne Thomas of Lancych (died 1837), traced back to Thomas Llwyd of Dolau Llanerch (died 1738). A slate plaque records the church and chancel being newly roofed and repaired in 1827.

Archaeological remains at the rear of the church include three inscribed stones and a fragment of a 15th-century cusped flat-headed window found in the churchyard in 1995. The first stone bears Ogham letters on the left, reading possibly D-V-TUCEAS or DOFOTMAQIS, which may correspond to the inscription DOBTV....FILIVS EVOLENC-, dating to the 5th or 6th century. An incised 9th-century wheel-cross with shaft and base has been carved over this inscription. This stone was later built into the granary steps at Dugoed. The second stone bears the Latin inscription SOLINI FILIVS VENDONI, dating to the 5th or 6th century, and was formerly built into the left pier of the lych gate. The third stone bears Ogham letters on the left and right, reading ETTERN ..... TOR, corresponding to the inscription ETTERN- F-LI VICTOR, dating to the 5th or 6th century. It was formerly located by the north wall of the churchyard, is flat-topped, and is said to have once been used as a sundial.