Church of St Luke or St Llonio

Church of St Luke or St Llonio

A hilltop church combining Tudor-Gothic and early 19th-century Gothic styles. It comprises a nave, lower and narrower chancel, and a west tower.

The tall tapering three-stage tower serves as the main entrance. It is battered at the base and has a higher north-east turret. The west doorway has a pointed arch with continuous chamfer and double doors of 1934. A 16th-century two-light square-headed west window has cusped lights and hood mould. The north side has a narrow window in the middle stage, whilst the north and west faces have small belfry windows in simple dressed surrounds. The south side is blank, though the arch of a former blocked belfry window can be seen. The embattled parapet sits on a corbel table.

The three-window nave has simple pointed windows of 1811. The chancel south wall has a two-light square-headed window with sunk spandrels on the left, and a single-light window in a dressed surround on the right. The three-light square-headed east window has sunk spandrels, hood mould with head stops. A gabled north vestry has an end stone stack, two pointed east windows, and a pointed west doorway with a door replaced in 1934. The nave has only two pointed windows on the north side and a shallow raked buttress at the east end.

The church is entered through the tower, which contains a pointed tunnel vault. The pointed nave doorway has double doors of 1934, above which is a blocked window abutting the apex of the tower vault. The nave has a king-post roof on corbelled brackets, spanning eight narrow bays. The simple pointed chancel arch is medieval. To its left is a narrow pointed doorway, formerly providing access to the rood loft. The chancel has a boarded ceiling to a collar-beam roof. A wide opening on the north side opens to the vestry and organ chamber. To its right is the wide splay of a former narrow window, now opening into the vestry. Flanking the altar are roughly hewn stone ledges at different levels, medieval and probably intended for statues. The 20th-century communion rail has iron uprights to a wooden rail.

The plain square font, still lead-lined, dates from the 12th or 13th century. Pews incorporate roundels with quatrefoils. At the east end of the south side is a larger family pew for the Mansels of Maesycrugiau. The polygonal wooden pulpit dates from 1934.

Numerous wall tablets are present. In the chancel east wall is a classical wall monument with draped urn over an inscription panel flanked by inverted torches, to John Thomas (died 1810), by R Walker of Bristol. The east wall also has a Gothic memorial comprising an inscription panel flanked by clustered shafts and surmounted by a sarcophagus, to Thomas Saunders (died 1816) and family of Perthyberllan. Monuments in the nave are simpler. Above the family pew is a simple panel to members of the Bowen family (died 1808–58). In the south wall is an elliptical panel framed by a thick slate border and set in a square panel with pediment, to Richard Jones (died 1817). The nave north wall has memorial tablets commemorating the dead of 1914–18 and 1939–45.

The family pew has a window depicting St Francis, by Charles Powell of London, dated 1936. The chancel east window depicts the Virgin Mary and Child, dated 1868.