Church of St Cadoc

Church of St Cadoc

This is a Grade I listed church comprising a nave, tower and chancel, with a 19th century north vestry and rebuilt south porch.

The older parts of the building are constructed from local axe-dressed uncoursed masonry, except for the north wall of the nave which is roughly brought to courses. The 19th century masonry of the porch and vestry is laid in snecked courses. The tower is finely proportioned and rises to a parapet projecting on billet corbels on all sides, with crenellations restored in the 19th century. Slits at belfry level open to the south, west and east. The roofs, including the saddleback roof of the tower, are of slate with restored coped gables to the nave, porch, vestry and chancel; tile or stone ridges and stone cross finials complete the roofscape.

The east window is an original pair of trefoil headed lights with pointed apexes and three stone heads suggesting a lost label moulding. The other windows are restored. The west window is traceried with two lights, while the remaining windows are lancets. The porch outer doorway is equilateral and pointed, constructed in oolitic limestone with a keeled roll moulding between deep hollows.

The porch contains collared and arch braced rafters and a chequer floor of black and red quarry tiles. The inner door features a fine Early English archway with keeled roll mouldings and a label mould with two terminal heads on the arch, though the head at left may be restored. Keeled and banded nook shafts with stiff leaf capitals lead up two steps into the nave.

The nave is dominated by an impressive barrel roof in four bays with arch bracing to every rafter, moulded cornices and five moulded longitudinal beams. The ceiling features 19th century decorative painting and carved foliate bosses carved by Davies. The floor is laid in quarry tiles. The rood doorway survives at high level to the left of the arch. The arch to the choir, located in the tower base, and the arch thence to the chancel are both equilateral, each enclosing a second order arch on hanging shafts on corbels; three steps rise at each arch. Each of the four hanging shafts is differently detailed in Early English style. One carries a perhaps tonsured head; a head has probably been lost from the shaft opposite. The choir ceiling is flat, painted blue with decorative bands and gold stars.

The chancel has a barrel ceiling also painted in blue with gold stars, supported on richly carved cornices. The bosses and cornices were carved by Davies. The floor is laid in red and black chequer quarry tiles outside the sanctuary, with flagstone within the sanctuary containing two black marble memorial slabs. A small 19th century piscina is present. An ancient stone altar slab found during restorations has been incorporated into the floor behind the present altar.

The south west part of the nave is arranged with wall seating as a baptistery and contains a 19th century octagonal font. A broken medieval tub font recovered from the churchyard stands against the west wall.

Memorials throughout the building include floor slabs in the chancel to the Rev J Williams (1787) and his daughter Barbara Williams (1831) and her daughter. In the nave are a brass memorial above the pulpit to the fallen of the parish in the Great War to the left of the arch, and a slate memorial to the fallen in the Second World War to the right. At the west of the nave are memorials to children of William Tucker (1739, 1747) and to Joseph Walker (1766).

Modern glass by Celtic Studios includes the east window, showing a pelican and phoenix symbolic of the Crucifixion and Resurrection, in memory of the Rev J T H Evans and son Michael (1973), and the west window on the theme of baptism, in memory of Frederica Ebeling and her grandson Colin Ross (circa 1980).