Church of St. Tybie

Church of St. Tybie

This grade II* listed church comprises a nave and chancel to the north, with an aisle and Lady chapel (or Ladies' Choir) to the south, all substantially restored. A fine large south-west tower dominates the composition. A 19th-century vestry stands to the south, with porches to the south and west and a small boiler-room at the north. The building is constructed throughout in local axe-dressed gritstone, informally mixed in places with limestone. The tower, the north wall of the present chancel, and the walls of the 19th-century vestry are strongly battered at the foot. All doors and windows in the body of the church have dressings in oolitic limestone. The roofs are laid in local gritstone slabs, except for a hidden slope roofed in slates. The gables are restored, coped, in oolitic limestone with finials.

The tower rises in three stages with a higher stair turret at the north-west corner. Crenellated parapets are slightly cantilevered forward above a weathered and undercut string course. Carved human faces appear at the centre of this string on both the north and south faces. Double belfry-openings on all faces have Tudor heads, partly restored. A string course marks the base of the belfry stage, also weathered and undercut, with another larger string course at the top of the battered base. A Tudor two-light window occupies the west side above the lower string course, while a small round-headed window sits to the south; slit lights serve the stairs. Clock faces appear to the south, west, and east. Two gargoyles on the west face are restored.

The windows in the body of the church are mostly restored in Decorated style. At the east are a two-light window to the Lady chapel with trefoils in the head tracery, and a three-light window to the chancel with quatrefoils in the head tracery. Both have label moulds on floral stops and relieving arches over. To the north and south of the nave and aisle are two-light windows with quatrefoils in the tracery heads and label moulds on floral stops. A similar window to the south of the aisle lacks a label. A three-light window to the south of the 19th-century south vestry is in plate tracery; a two-light Tudor style window sits to the east; a Caernarfon-arched doorway opens to the west. The west and south porches are open-fronted with pointed and chamfered arches. The west door is adorned with ornate ironwork.

Interior

The 19th-century restoration has produced an interior of uniform appearance except for the chancel, which stands out for its joinery and monuments.

An arcade of two equilateral-pointed chamfered arches and one high-level irregular segmental arch (altered 1971) divides the nave from the south aisle. Two similar pointed arches separate the chancel and Lady chapel. A wide and tall chancel arch, also chamfered, connects these spaces. The arches lack caps or mouldings at the imposts. A similar irregularly formed arch connects the aisle to the Lady chapel. The nave and aisle are pewed as one, in three blocks, with similar pews facing towards the chancel in the Lady chapel. The nave, chancel, aisle, and chapel are all roofed with trussed rafters braced to a barrel form. Although much restored, some timbers are moulded and appear to be medieval. Black and red quarry tiles in chequer pattern cover the flooring throughout. A high boarded dado runs against the nave west wall only. A timber pulpit on a stone plinth stands at the left of the chancel arch.

The chancel is one step up. Two choirstalls occupy each side; the desks of the boys' stalls were removed in 1995. Carved Gothic altar rails, from Scott's restoration, feature moulded top and foot rails with cinquefoil-headed openings. A reredos with four panels, each with a four-centred head, displays painted verses on metal. A carved screen in Perpendicular style with traceried heads to the openings and a carved cresting stands at the right. The organ is installed at high level in the first arch of the chancel arcade, with its console and bellows in the Lady chapel. To its left, in the chancel, is a cast-iron Royal Coat of Arms said to have been cast at Coalbrookdale in 1817.

Glass is mostly a pattern of fleur-de-lys quarries with coloured margins. Only the east window is pictorial, showing four scenes from the New Testament: the Nativity, Presentation, Crucifixion, and Ascension; it is undated.

Two fonts serve the church: a simple stone font of hexagonal shape with a hexagonal shaft and base, perhaps pre-Norman, with a modern cover; and a second square font in Early English style in Bath stone, probably contemporary with the church's restoration, with a cover donated in 1936.

Memorials

A memorial to Elizabeth Bridgstock of Llechdonny, dated 1667, stands in the Lady chapel as an eared-framed panel beneath a round pediment crowned by arms on a cartouche and supported by a cherub on a bracket. Beside this is the hatchment of Sir Henry Vaughan, died 1676, the oldest hatchment in any church in south Wales.

A fine collection of two Baroque and five Georgian memorials adorns the north side of the chancel. Nearest the chancel arch is a monument of 1703 to Thomas Bennett of Aberlash, with two fluted pilasters and large pilaster-cornices, and a pediment formed of ramped scrolls. Second from the east wall is the monument to Sir Henry Vaughan, dated 1676. This features a high-relief bust, repaired, the figure in a niche holding a dagger and sword surrounded by objects of symbolic significance. Twisted columns and a broken pediment frame the composition; the frieze reads "Vivit post funera virtus." A cartouche with helmet crowns the monument, with putti bearing trumpets at each side, resting on skulls. An inscription beneath with side volutes is supported by a cherub on a bracket. The recently restored colouring of this monument was carefully renewed by E. Williams.

Georgian monuments include two sculpted by T King of Bath: to Rebecca Lewis of Llanllear, dated 1782, a draped urn; and to Bridget Jones of Duffryn, dated 1780, an undraped urn on a shelf. Others include one to Arthur Price, dated 1757, a draped urn on a pedestal; to Elizabeth Vaughan, dated 1754, a plain urn in a broken pediment; and to Elizabeth, Lady Stepney, dated 1795, a draped urn on a sarcophagus with ramped scrolls, the shelf carried on architraveless fluted columns at each side of the inscription. Low-relief figures decorate the sarcophagus. Twentieth-century brass memorials lie beneath.

Plain inscribed tablets commemorating the DuBuisson and Henckell families form a group in the south-west corner of the nave, ranging in date from 1772 to 1930. Memorials to the north of the nave include one to Eliza Maria Williams, dated 1878, with short black colonnetes, oolitic limestone caps, bases and shelf, and a steep Gothic stilted pediment surmounted by a cross; and one to Hester Williams, dated 1837, in sarcophagus form, by H Wood of Bristol.

A brass memorial to the fallen of the Great War stands to the right of the chancel arch, with another to the fallen of the Second World War in the south aisle. A marble memorial to members of Capel Wesle fallen in the Great War, brought here when the chapel closed in 1973, is also displayed.

Plain inscribed memorials in the west porch include one to Mary Davies, dated 1759, by John Thomas of Llandybie, and another to J E Protheroe, surgeon, dated 1836, also signed by John Thomas of Llandybie.