Church of Saint Martin of Tours

Church of Saint Martin of Tours

This parish church is constructed in brown rubble stone with slate roofs and coped gables with finials. The building comprises a nave and chancel with a north-west tower and spire, a parallel-roofed south aisle, and a lean-to chancel addition on the north side.

The tower is thin and plain in the typical South Pembrokeshire 15th-century type, mostly in grey stone. The bottom section was heavily encased in 1857 in sloping masonry of cut grey limestone. The tower has minimal loops for bell openings and a corbelled low parapet. The recessed octagonal spire in grey limestone ashlar dates to 1866 and features three moulded bands and a finial in Forest of Dean stone.

The nave has a large west window in Bath stone with elaborate late Gothic tracery dating from the 1860s. The south side of the nave has no window before the south aisle, which features a three-sided stair turret in the angle to the nave with a slate roof lean-to against the aisle's west end. The chamfered corner of the tower is brought to square with 19th-century ashlar corbels. A plain 19th-century pair of pointed lights at the west end lights a priest's room over the porch.

The south porch has a 19th-century pointed entry with hoodmould and two chamfers, the inner one carried on column shafts with moulded bases and capitals. The voussoirs are squared stone in two colours of stone. Within the porch is an early 20th-century wooden screen with three pointed doors and boarded tracery above.

The south aisle has three 19th-century three-light south windows from the 1860s with roundels in the heads. At the east end is the surround of an original Tudor-arched four-light window with renewed panel tracery and hoodmould, with original stone voussoirs and keystone. The lower chancel has one renewed lancet in the south wall to the extreme left, with the wall of the added south aisle angled in to expose it, and a 19th-century two-light south window. A large 19th-century three-light east window features a big sexfoil in the head, hoodmould, and bi-colour cut stone voussoirs.

The north side has a 19th-century lean-to addition with a single light at the east end, a north side door, and a three-light window. The nave north has three bays divided by two large stepped 19th-century buttresses. The tower stands against the first bay, while the other two bays have 19th-century pointed three-light windows with quatrefoil roundels in the heads and bi-colour stone voussoirs.

Interior

Within the porch are two fine 14th-century Decorated style niches, one on each side of the inner door, with trefoiled arches and ogee heads. The nave has an arch-braced roof and the chancel has a scissor truss roof, both from the 1860s. A fine tall chancel arch features three groups of small filleted and keel-shaped roll mouldings, though the capitals were destroyed in 1840.

The sedilia dates from the 14th century and features ogee arches on hexagonal shafts with circular bases. The adjoining piscina has ballflower decoration and a crocketted ogee surround. Two arches open from the nave to the added south aisle, with one also from the chancel. The nave arcades were rebuilt in the 1860s. In the respond of the east arch is a Tudor-arched squint with a carved bowl beneath, possibly a stoup, carved on its underside with a Tudor rose. A Tudor arch separates the chancel from the aisle.

Fittings and Stained Glass

The 12th-century font has been much retooled and consists of a low square bowl with angled corners on an octagonal shaft. A Bath stone pulpit from the 1860s features quatrefoils. Stations of the Cross from Munich date to 1895. A Gothic porch screen was designed in 1903 by H.J.P. Thomas of Haverfordwest, who also designed the Lady Chapel screen in 1909. The organ dates to 1704 by Father Smith and was originally at St David's Cathedral. It was moved here in 1881 without five ranks of pipes that were used in the new Father Willis organ at St David's. The organ was relocated in 1909 from the south aisle to the west end. The church also has plain open pews.

The east window dates to circa 1880 and depicts Christ with Saints Martin and David. A south aisle window from 1893 by C.G. Gray of Cambridge was created to the memory of Reverend H. Leeds. Gray was a wall-painting specialist and added frescoes in 1895, which are now gone. A second south aisle window from 1940 by C.C. Powell depicts the Annunciation. A third south aisle window from 1909 is by Heaton, Butler and Bayne. The south aisle east window from 1921 is by Morris & Company and depicts Saints Mary Magdalene, Mary, Christ and St John, based on designs made in the late 19th century by Sir Edward Burne-Jones. The west window by Celtic Studios dates to 1988. Late 20th-century patterned glass fills two nave north windows and the north lean-to north window.

Memorials and Sculpture

Memorial tablets include one to Thomas Lloyd of Danyrallt (died 1722), an open-pedimented small tablet with shield; and plain tablets to Reverend J. Rees (died 1835) and Frances Thompson (died 1842), both by J. Thomas of Haverfordwest.

A 13th or 14th-century coffin-lid carved with a foliated Latin cross survives in the church. A concrete and glass sculpture of the Virgin Mary by Stephen Sykes dates to the 1960s.