Parish Church of St Mary Magdalene

Parish Church of St Mary Magdalene

This Anglican parish church comprises a west tower, nave and chancel, with an attached vestry added in 1884. The building is constructed of rubble stone with Bath stone dressings, and is roofed with concrete tiles to the nave and slates to the chancel, with Bath stone copings and cross finials.

The tall fifteenth-century tower features a battered plinth, massive quoins, and nineteenth-century Bath stone window dressings. It has a corbelled embattled parapet and a south-east stair tower. The tower displays plain rectangular louvred bell-openings and a two-light flat-headed small window with hoodmould on the west face at mid height. The main entrance is marked by a plain cambered-headed door with stone voussoirs and double boarded doors.

The broad nave contains four pointed traceried two-light windows of 1853-55 on the north and south sides, each with hoodmoulds beneath stone voussoirs. The window apexes show varied designs including quatrefoil and cinquefoil forms. Evidence of wall thickening is visible on the north side, along with a blocked window at the third bay. Two blocked doorways are evident on the south side in the first and second bays; the second of these was the original south entrance, blocked in 1853, and retains stone dressings and voussoirs.

The lower, narrower chancel has two two-light pointed windows of 1883-84 on each side with quatrefoil heads and hoodmoulds. On the north side, to the west of these, is a late medieval rectangular leaded light with plain stone dressings. To the east stand two broad possibly late medieval low buttresses with heavy plinths and a single set off below sill level of a large 1883-84 three-light east window with paired quatrefoils to the apex.

The small attached vestry of 1883 is positioned to the south of the chancel, with a gabled roof tiled to the south. It contains square-headed windows—two-light to the south and three-light to the east—leaded with coloured glass. A boarded timber west door with large iron hinges and knocker provides access.

The tower interior has a flagstone floor and a high, barrel-vaulted stone ceiling. A fifteenth-century or earlier stoop stands to the right of paired, panelled timber internal doors glazed to their upper panels.

The nave features a roof of 1853-55 with arch-braced collar-trusses and diagonally-slatted timber ceiling rising from corbels. The walls are plastered and flanked by the side windows of 1853-55. The exceptional large twelfth-century chancel arch is a depressed arch of two thick rounded mouldings separated by three steps, with an outer hoodmould. Two round shafts on each side carry fine carved capitals: the outer ones are decorated with cable vertical strips, the inner one with corner scrolls and some cable mould. The innermost arch rests on wall piers with chamfered angles defined by an incised line and scrolls at the tops. A timber organ gallery dating to 1909 is positioned to the west, carried on five cast iron columns. The gallery front has vertical panels with a three-sided central projection. The massive pipe organ has a projecting centre section and turned sides, with tall vertical arcaded panels above long horizontal panels.

The chancel features a barrelled timber ceiling of 1883-84, boarded and ribbed. A nineteenth-century trefoil-headed piscina is located to the south-east. The 1883-84 windows include an east window with a segmental-pointed arch and hood. A pointed-headed small arch leads to the 1883 vestry, which has a boarded timber ceiling.

Early nineteenth-century pitch pine box pews are distributed throughout the church, with vertical slatted rears, lightly decorated terminals and panelled doors. A twelfth or thirteenth-century Norman font, circular on a round ringed shaft with a square base, stands in the nave. An octagonal oak pulpit of 1900, made by James Griffiths, a carpenter of St. Clears, perhaps to designs by the vicar Reverend F. Owen, displays foliate design to the upper panels and plain horizontal panels below. A Gothic reredos of 1897 in unvarnished oak, made by Messrs T. Thomason of Birmingham, features three crocketted gables flanked by crocketted finials, set above a late nineteenth-century timber communion table with traceried panels. An eagle oak lectern of 1903, made by Wippell and Co. of Exeter, completes the principal furnishings.

The stained glass east window of 1901, depicting the Crucifixion, was made by Mayer & Co of Munich at a cost of £140. Several other windows are by Charles C. Powell of London, including examples from 1926, 1927, and three of 1929.

Memorial plaques include a marble cross in the chancel north-west corner to Thomas Westcott (died 1861); an inscribed slate in the chancel north-west to the Chapman family dated 1780, by J. Maliphant of Kidwelly; a marble plaque in the chancel south-west to Hugh Leach of Bristol (died 1820); an inscribed slate plaque in the chancel south-west to Reverend Timothy Powell (died 1719); and a marble memorial with pilasters, figurine and urn on the nave south wall to Thomas Howell Rees of Llwynpiod (died 1785).