Church of St Barnabas

Church of St Barnabas

A mid to late 19th-century Anglican church in early English style, designed by D. Brandon. It is constructed of dressed local stone with steeply pitched, banded Pembrokeshire slate roof and raised, coped gables. Bath stone dressings are used throughout, particularly to the narrow lancet windows. The building features a raised sill band and plinth, with a wooden bell-cote above the nave.

The church comprises a single aisle with five bays to the nave, each bay lit by lancet windows separated by stepped, sloping buttresses. The buttresses are finished with light trefoiled Gothic heads and drip mould hoods, terminating alternately in ornately carved human heads or florets. The chancel is shorter and lower, with an apsidal end and similar lancet windows and buttresses, with one light to each face of the apsidal end. A small lean-to vestry is positioned to the north, concealing one bay of the chancel and featuring a slated roof of gentler pitch. A small bipartite window to the north has sandstone dressings and a cast iron roof finial forming a six-pointed star beneath a barbed spearhead.

The south porch has a gable front with a pointed-headed Gothic arch to the south, with splayed moulding to arch and jamb. A raised string course and small buttresses lie beneath the sides near the angles. The porch roof is pitched and banded Pembrokeshire slate with a raised, coped gable.

The belfry stands to the west of the nave and is of timber construction with pierced wooden side panels consisting of trefoiled Gothic heads beneath a small tripartite arcade of spandrels. It is topped with a steep, slated spirelet. Small pointed-headed openings to the spire sides are decorated with similar Gothic trefoiled heads and bear small decorative cast iron finials with interlacing circles and pointed heads. A larger, similar finial to the apex terminates in a narrow cross. A bipartite west window has lights separated by stone columns.

The interior, dating from 1863, is a single-aisled space seating 250, with plastered walls and open rafter ceilings rising from lightly carved corbels with foliate detail, particularly to those in the chancel. The roof features arch-braced collar trusses with trefoil spandrels to the braces and Gothic-style arch braces to the apse. A pointed Gothic chancel arch springs from foliate corbels. Above the arch is a painted inscription reading 'Gogoniant i Dduw yn y Goruchafiod'.

The church contains much stained glass. The apse windows depict the Crucifixion, Resurrection and Ascension and are by Heater, Butler and Bayne, dating to 1863. The east window is a memorial to James Lewes Lloyd and Joyce Maria Lloyd of Dolhaidd. The north and south nave windows are by Celtic Studios and date to the 1960s.

The octagonal font is of Caen stone, dating to 1863, and stands on a quadripartite pillared base with carved detail to four sides featuring florid decoration within quatrefoil recesses, all within a sun motif. A small, plain 1863 Bath stone pulpit, carved by Peter Ford of Cheadle, Staffordshire, stands above a stone base with a projecting three-sided timber front of tall Gothic-headed panels.

The pews are of pitch pine with panelled rears and plain ends. A brass eagle lectern commemorates the Reverend Canon Samuel Evans, B.A., former rector of the parish from 1940 to 1962. A pair of small timber reading desks dating from 1953 have attached seats with paired panels to the base featuring quatrefoil spandrels and open fronts, with light carving and foliate detail to their upper sections.

The small pipe organ features three large pipes to the outer flanks, higher to the centre, with five pipes to the inner flanks ascending from the centre section, which has three pipes, taller to the centre. Sections are divided by upright timbers with cross decoration to the heads, and single horizontal timber bars with light trefoil decoration run across the middle flanks. A plaque reads 'In Loving Memory of Daniel Jenkins who laboured faithfully in the parish as headmaster, conductor and organist for 25 years March 1892 to September 6th 1917'. The Voix Celeste stop was added in 1917. A pitch pine pulpit table and reredos feature eight enamelled figures in small upper panels and a carved top bar. Tiled floors run throughout, raised to the chancel.

A small pointed-headed Gothic arched doorway to the small vestry opens from the north of the chancel. The south nave wall, between the south-east and centre window, bears a marble memorial to Corporal William Frederick Jones, lost at the Relief of Mafeking on 13 February 1900. The memorial features elaborately carved heads with much florid and foliate detail, a Gothic central arch on corbels and columns.