St David's Parish Church is a Grade II listed building in the Carmarthenshire local planning authority area, Wales. First listed on 25 October 1990. Wartime structure.
St David's Parish Church
- WRENN ID
- noble-bailey-crag
- Grade
- II
- Local Planning Authority
- Carmarthenshire
- Constituency
- Caerfyrddin MP: Ann Davies (PC)
- Country
- Wales
- Date first listed
- 25 October 1990
- Type
- Wartime structure
- Address
- St David's Parish Church, Betws, Ammanford
- OS grid reference
- SN 631 116
- Coordinates
- 51.78699, -3.98532
- Source
- Cadw listing
Description
St David’s Parish Church is a rectangular building dating from 1872, with a north vestry and a medieval south porch. The church is constructed from random rubble masonry with local stone, featuring ashlar dressings and copings. The roof is covered in graded sandstone tiles, with crested terracotta ridge tiles and exposed rafter ends at the eaves. The gabled parapets are coped with cross finials, and a bell cote supports a weather cock. Grouped and single lancet windows have cusped heads; visible construction breaks around some windows indicate alterations. The building incorporates angle buttresses to the gables and single buttresses to the nave.
The south porch has a voussoired pointed arch. The porch roof features a single, oak, collared roof truss with cusping over the collar and curved extended feet, likely of medieval origin. The pointed inner door has roll and cavetto moulded dressings in red sandstone, possibly dating from the 17th century. A small stoup is situated on the right side of the door. The south nave wall contains two single lancets, with a twin lancet to the right of the porch. The west end has a double door within a voussoired cambered opening, and a partially blocked round-headed voussoired opening above, of uncertain date, with a modern circular light. The north wall has three sets of twin lancets, and a twin lancet with a roundel above, in the north vestry. A single east vestry door has a pointed head and flat-chamfered dressings. A twin lancet window is present within the north chancel wall, while the east chancel window is a two-light design with bar tracery. The south chancel wall incorporates two sets of twin lancets.
The walls are cement-rendered. There is no chancel arch. The nave and chancel are covered by a fifteen-bay roof. The nave features oak, arch-braced collared trusses with unconventional cusping over the collars and chamfered purlins, potentially from the 17th century. The chancel roof is similar, but possibly later. Both roofs have notches indicating a previously removed plaster ceiling and ridge purlin. A stoup and a piscina niche are thought to be medieval. A 19th-century square font is also present. Two two-light windows on the south nave wall incorporate decorative coloured glass, created by John Petts of Llanstephan in 1971 and 1976. Windows on the north wall, designed by B Tobias Evans of Celtic Studios in 1961, depict 'The Charge to St Peter'. The east chancel window displays coloured glass work depicting 'Light of the world', designed by Sir Lawrence Lee in 1960, who also designed glass for Coventry Cathedral. 20th-century oak wainscoting is found in the chancel, along with an oak Gothic panelled altar and reredos. Other additions include a 20th-century oak lectern and pulpit, and a pitch-pine organ with two cases positioned on opposite sides of the choir.
Local climate
St David's Parish Church sits in one of the wettest parts of the UK, with an average of 1,430 mm of rain a year. This makes it wetter than 98% of listed buildings in the UK. Its exposure to wind-driven rain is greater than that of 96% of listed buildings.
It experiences an average of 30 freeze-thaw cycles a year, fewer than 63% of listed buildings. Of these, 13 follow at least 1 mm of rain in the preceding 48 hours. Average temperatures at this location have risen by 0.3°C per decade since 1991.
Averages for 1991–2020; temperature trend 1991–2025. Figures describe the wider area (a grid cell of roughly 10 km), not the individual site. Contains modified Copernicus Climate Change Service information 2026.
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- No EPC on record for this property
- No sale records on file
- No related consent applications matched
- Detailed attributes — period, style, materials, features
- Flood risk assessment
- Radon risk assessment
- Weather exposure and heating demand — rain and frost month by month and year by year, wind direction, solar and humidity
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