Church of St Peter and St Illtyd

Church of St Peter and St Illtyd

Anglican parish church comprising a west tower, nave and chancel under a single roof, and north porch. Built in rubble stone with stone-tiled roofs.

The west tower has a chamfered plinth and a string course just above. It contains two chamfered loops and a flat-headed traceried two-light bell-opening on each side, with a moulded string course, two stone rainwater spouts on each side, and an embattled parapet with moulded copings. The north side of the tower has a third loop positioned under the bell-light.

The nave and chancel feature late Gothic style three-light traceried windows with flat heads, ogee-headed lights and quatrefoils above, all with deep hoodmoulds. These windows are in red sandstone and date to 1887. Three windows occupy the north side, with a two-step buttress marking the division between nave and chancel. The north porch stands to the right. The buttress has rock-faced quoins. The porch was rebuilt in 1887 but reuses a medieval plain pointed chamfered arch. Nineteenth-century double full-height iron gates give access, with a red stone doorway within featuring moulded pointed decoration, hoodmould and carved head stops, all dating to 1887. Resited carved grave slabs flank the entrance, some bearing seventeenth-century dates including that of Elizabeth Awbrey, who died in 1664.

The east end displays a pointed late Gothic style red stone window with hoodmould and carved head stops. The south side mirrors the north side but without a porch and features a tall battered-sided chimney on the wall face above the buttress.

Interior

The interior has whitewashed walls and open roofs of four arch-braced collar trusses with high brattished collars, supported on hammerbeams braced from carved stone corbels. The windows have red sandstone splayed segmental-pointed reveals. A plain low Tudor-arched door to the west leads to the tower.

The chancel is separated by a red sandstone pointed chancel arch with a double chamfered arch, the inner order carried on triple-shafted short columns on corbels with marble shafts and carved head corbels. The hoodmould features king and bishop head stops. One step leads to the chancel and one to the sanctuary. A red sandstone low tomb recess on the north side contains a fourteenth-century effigy. An ogee piscina with hoodmould occupies the south side.

Fittings include an octagonal retooled late medieval font with the underside curved to a coved moulding on top of its octagonal shaft. The font cover is inscribed as a gift from Stephen W. Williams FRIBA Architect in 1887. A three-sided timber pulpit with blind tracery panelling stands on an ashlar three-sided plinth with moulded base and cornice, accessed by three stone steps. Altar rails rest on twisted brass standards. The oak altar and reredos date to the early twentieth century and feature Gothic styling with an ogee-headed centre panel depicting painted Christ and lamb, flanked by sides with cresting and painted kneeling angels beside narrow panels with painted lilies. The upper and outer borders feature carved vine-trail decoration. Oak stalls have poppyhead finials with pierced Gothic panels to front kneelers and similar poppy-heads to the reading-desk kneeler. Pine pews have shaped bench-ends.

Memorials and wall-paintings

An early medieval inscribed stone features a cross flanked by two crude figures with upraised hands, one larger than the other. One edge is inscribed 'iohannis / moridic surexit hunc lapidem' and is thought to date to the tenth or eleventh century. A fine carved fourteenth-century effigy of a woman occupies the north tomb recess, with a seventeenth-century inscription identifying her as Lady Jane Stanley. A white marble plaque on grey commemorates John Powell of Peterstone Court (died 1769), his wife (died 1801) and T. H. Powell, barrister (died 1822). A marble plaque with coat of arms honours the Reverend Thomas Powell of Peterstone Court, rector of Llanhamlach, JP (1755–1832). Two sets of three late nineteenth-century angels are painted on the east wall.