Church of Saint Mary and Saint Cynidr

Church of Saint Mary and Saint Cynidr

Parish church built of rubble stone, consisting of a single chamber with a steep slate roof and a large west bellcote. A north porch and north vestry (added in 1884) complete the external form.

The roof overhangs at the eaves and has coped east and west gables, with the east gable carrying a cross finial. The west end features a projecting centre pier supporting the bellcote, which has a battered base and tooled stone quoins. A cusped lancet occupies the centre, with the bellcote itself displaying a string course, two grey stone pointed cusped openings with three column shafts each, a blank trefoil roundel above, and a steep gable.

The south side contains three two-light windows with simple cusped heads, followed by a pointed chancel door and a single similar chancel light. The east end wall displays a large grey stone traceried three-light pointed window with hoodmould; the lights are cusped and feature a large sexfoil roundel in the head, with stone voussoirs over the hoodmould.

The north side of the chancel has a similar south light to the left of the large projecting 1884 vestry. This vestry is constructed with ashlar quoins and dressings, has a half-hipped roof with a gablet, and features a very tall east chimney with quoins (on the left only, where the wall steps back). The chimney has a tapered shaft and a medieval-style gabled cap. The vestry's north end contains an off-centre broad plate traceried window of three short lancets under a roundel pierced by three glazed roundels, all executed in ashlar with ashlar voussoirs. A ventilation loop appears below, left of centre. The west side of the vestry has a basement door with a shouldered head and ashlar relieving arch. At the corner to the nave, the building is canted inward to leave clear one of the two nave north two-light windows.

The north porch, situated to the right, has a steep roof with red plain tiles, a plinth, tooled quoins, and a coped gable with a cross. The pointed entry has a hoodmould. Stone seats and a flagged floor are within. The medieval north doorway features a bar-stopped chamfered pointed surround, with a nineteenth-century board door carrying large iron hinges. On the west wall is a reset medieval stoup with a three-sided curved front.

Interior

The walls are plastered, though stripped at the west end. The nave has a boarded six-sided roof, with the division to the chancel marked by a moulded pointed timber arch on corbels. The chancel has a transverse timber ribs supporting a pointed boarded roof. A small fireplace with a pointed cusped opening occupies the west wall. Windows have pointed reveals. The floor of the nave centre consists of flagstones.

The chancel is marked by a step and a very low chamfered ashlar coping on each side; the right side links to a pulpit screen. The chancel has opposed north and south doors, both segmental-pointed; the north door rises four steps to the 1884 vestry. A sanctuary step with oak rails follows. The chancel floor is probably tiled but covered in carpet. One further step leads to the altar, with a sill course beneath the east window.

The fittings are predominantly well-designed High Victorian pieces in simplified Gothic style by Buckeridge, dating to 1860. The font is a tooled stone round form with a deep-splayed underside on a round shaft, copied from that in Llandyfaelog Fach, with a cover of 1959. The pulpit stands on a massive stone base with a squat octagonal pier and stone steps; it has an oak three-sided panelled front with blind Gothic detail. Behind the pulpit is a panelled timber screen with the top three panels pierced by roundels. Simple altar rails on posts feature zig-zag notching to their upper halves, continued on the underside of the rail, which has cusped angle braces. The oak altar table displays similar notching and brackets. Pine pews have shaped bench-ends.

An early twentieth-century ornate lectern of bookrest type is also present.

Memorials include a massive fifteenth-century floor slab at the west end, leaning against the wall, bearing a foliated cross and eroded inscription said to commemorate Richard ap Jenkyn and his wife Cecilia. A worn seventeenth-century incised slab in the floor by the pulpit is said to record "Mary descended from Traharne Madock Lord Cwmod..." (read differently by T. Jones in 1800).