Church of Saint Cynwyl

Church of Saint Cynwyl

An Anglican parish church built of rubble stone with slate roofs, coped gables, ashlar cross finials and crested terracotta ridge tiles. The building comprises a nave and chancel with a narrower, shorter north aisle under a separate roof. The west end has a late 19th-century porch, crudely built with a chamfered pointed sandstone west doorway and a 19th-century plank door. Blocked full-height openings flank this doorway: the north side has an inserted pointed window, while the south side is infilled in red brick.

The west bellcote follows the design shown in an 1863 drawing. It has an ashlar corbelled label stepped four times in the gable apex, then a battered square base layered in five steps, beneath a square main part with plain chamfered pointed openings on all four sides. Steep gables face west and east, each with trefoils in the apex and a cross finial on the ridge, while smaller gables face north and south.

The nave's south wall is rebuilt and contains three 19th-century two-light windows with trefoiled circles in their heads. The chancel has one 15th-century two-light south window and a blocked narrow south door with a scar of stone voussoirs, plus one 15th-century three-light east window, though the east wall appears largely rebuilt.

The north aisle is a single-roofed range with 15th-century windows: three-light windows at each end and one two-light window on the north wall. Another north wall window has been removed to make way for a crude lean-to north vestry, and there is another blocked north opening. The west end has a low Tudor-arched door with a 19th-century plank door; the stonework may be 17th-century. All five 15th-century windows are of grey sandstone, flat-headed and recessed, with uncusped arched heads to the lights and incised spandrels. In the porch, a 19th-century three-sided roof and a segmental-pointed west door in tooled sandstone feature double board doors.

Interior

The interior is whitewashed and plastered, with exposed stonework only to the 15th-century arcade. The roofs are 19th-century arch-braced rafters on moulded wallplates. The chancel arch is a Tudor-arched design in ashlar on heavy corbels, apparently 19th-century work.

The nave has a broad two-bay 15th-century arcade with square piers featuring chamfered angles and matching responds. There are no capitals; the arches are roughly segmental or segmental-pointed with two chamfers, the inner chamfer dying into the piers, with truncated broach stops to the pier chamfers. A broad Bath stone 19th-century chancel arch, of four-centred form, sits on two heavy moulded corbels. The chancel's north side has a 15th-century single arch to the north aisle, which is lower and more depressed than the nave arcade. One step leads to the chancel, and another to the sanctuary with circa 1962 rails and east wall panelling. The north aisle's east end is screened off for the organ and vestry, with an additional vestry added to the north.

At the nave's west end is an eroded pointed piscina to the right of the door, with a hexagonal bowl, curved back and cusped head. A small crude stoup stands to the left of the nave arcade. The font is medieval and heavily retooled: an ashlar octagonal design with a stepped rim over a raised band, chamfered back to battered sides over a roll-moulded base, set on a short octagonal shaft.

Memorials include a slate plaque to Mary Jones (died 1815) in the chancel, and a fossiliferous marble plaque to Eben Jones of Llechsion (died 1851) in the aisle.

Furnishings

The furnishings are largely by Seddon, worked in pine. The pews have unusual inset butterfly joints. The pulpit stands on an ashlar base and is a three-sided pitch-pine design with chamfered angles and boarded panels, accessed by four stone steps. The altar table is plain and simpler than the 1863 design. A vestry screen in the north aisle has four bays with pointed arches formed by curved braces and a brattished beam, considerably less elaborate than the 1863 design.

The stained glass in the three-light east window, designed by Seddon in 1876, is of remarkable design: a cross set against a herringbone pattern of clear and stained glass quarries. The cross features five roundels depicting the wounds of Christ—the head, heart, both hands and both feet—finely drawn, with the four terminal roundels in pink on black and the central heart roundel in scarlet on black. The other windows contain patterned glass in muted colours, also by Seddon.