Church of Saint Brynach

Church of Saint Brynach

Anglican parish church built substantially in the 19th century, constructed of rubble stone with Bath stone dressings and slate roofs with crested ridge tiles, coped gables and cross finials.

The church comprises a nave, chancel, transepts, a western porch and a northeastern vestry parallel to the chancel. The western end features an 1878 rebuilt gabled bellcote with a single pointed opening, coped gable, cross-finial and small gablets on each side. The 1878 western porch is built in squared sandstone with a double-chamfered ashlar pointed arched entry and two-colour voussoirs. The western door within is round arched with stone voussoirs and 19th-century double doors, with single lights to each side wall of the porch.

The south side of the nave has two larger lancet windows with ashlar frames and slight cusping, inserted into earlier 19th-century pointed openings with stone voussoirs. A blocked, possibly medieval chamfered pointed doorway lies between them, with a 5th or 6th-century inscribed stone reused in the infill. The south transept shows signs of a raised roof and details all from 1878, including a two-light window with a quatrefoil head and single lights to each side wall, with hoodmoulds. The north side of the nave has two single lights, similar to those on the south but of slightly different sizes, both ashlar and cusped, inserted into earlier 19th-century chamfered openings, one pointed and one with a cambered head. The north transept has a 19th-century two-light north window with a quatrefoil head and stone voussoirs, with a battered base to the wall indicating early origins.

The chancel south side has a flat-headed four-light window of 1878 with cusped heads to the lights. The east wall is entirely of 1878, featuring a three-light east window with a rose in the head of three trefoils and a hoodmould. Each side has a reset small medieval shield, positioned upside down. The attached large northeastern vestry has an east gable in line with a three-light pointed east window with three sexfoils in the head and a hoodmould over. The north side has a plain four-light window with pointed heads and a segmental-pointed door to the right.

The interior is substantially 19th century with whitewashed plastered walls and 19th-century roofs. The nave has close-spaced trusses on corbels, the front two corbels carved with shell motifs, apparently reused from the 18th century. Plastered arches lead to the transepts. The nave roof has collar trusses. The chancel arch is pointed and plastered, leading to a five-bay chancel roof with arched-braced collar trusses with apex struts on corbels and diagonal boarding. An ashlar surround frames the east window over a painted ashlar reredos with five gables, fleur-de-lys finials and cusped-headed panels separated by ring-shafted columns. Four panels have texts painted on zinc; the centre has a carved surround and quatrefoil with IHS motif and is flanked by panels with flat heads and nailhead ornament, each with a quatrefoil—one framing a wheatsheaf, the other a vine motif. Encaustic tiles are in the sanctuary. A segmental pointed north door opens into the vestry.

The fittings include pitch-pine plain pews and more elaborate chancel stalls with cusped arcading and ringed shafts, with matching timber altar rails with ringed shafts. A hexagonal timber pulpit with four-panel sides features linenfold panels below and cusped heads above. A mid-20th-century limed oak altar stands in the south transept. An octagonal 19th-century Bath stone font with quatrefoil panels is present.

Memorials include a late 18th-century three-colour marble plaque with an open pediment on consoles with shield on the chancel north wall, commemorating Rev Rice Howell of Maesgwyn (died 1716) and descendants including Rev Walter Howell (died 1731), John Howell (died 1725), Hester Phillips (died 1739), Ann Lewes (died 1743) and Walter Rice Howell (died 1789). A Neo-Grec marble plaque by Tyley of Bristol commemorates Walter R. H. Powell (died 1834). A late 19th or early 20th-century tile panel to the left of the pulpit commemorates W.L. Philipps of Clyngwynne (died 1895).

The stained glass includes a later 19th-century two-light window in the north transept depicting St Thomas and the Good Samaritan, to T.R.O. Powell. The south transept has single-light windows on each side with stained glass of 1878: the east window to Walter Powell (died 1855) shows "Suffer the children", and the west window to Margaret Powell (died 1878) shows the "Good Shepherd". The south window dates to 1849, signed by Joseph Bell of Bristol, depicting "Angel at the Tomb" and "Noli me tangere" in bright colours and pictorial style, commemorating Emily Powell (died 1846).

The vestry has a four-bay roof on stone corbels with collar trusses with arched braces and arched struts over the collars.