Church of St Teilo

Church of St Teilo

Anglican parish church constructed in blue-black engineering brick with bands of concrete and concrete eaves and parapets. The roof has a single long pitch to the south, clad in metal sheet (originally copper), and an almost vertical north wall hung with slates. The east and west gables are asymmetrical, with the east gable windowless and the west gable featuring strip windows. The low south wall also has strip windows, while the north wall has a full-height glazed bay at the left end lighting the altar.

The glazing throughout the church uses metal-framed leaded narrow lights in concrete recessed frames, set in close-spaced vertical strips recessed in the brickwork. The west wall, now the entrance, has a plain doorway to the right with concrete lintel and double plank doors. The window arrangement consists of seven strips rising in height from right to left, with each strip alternately containing two or three lights one above the other, creating a stepped rhythm across the facade.

The north wall features a low brick plinth with a concrete massive gutter beam with central rainwater-head. Above this, the slate-hung steep wall slopes back, leaving the vertical-glazed bay standing clear at the left. This bay has copper-clad sides, a metal-sheet sloping top (formerly copper), and glazing in nine long lights with timber mullions and alternate transoms.

The south wall has vertical strip glazing, with the first four strips (to the porch) originally having three lights each, though the bottom two in each strip are now blocked. The main church body has three sets of four strips and an additional pair, each with a long lower strip now blocked, leaving only lights under the eaves with one, four and three lights respectively. A square porch projects from the south wall with a flat roof, concrete band at lintel height and concrete parapet. A blocked opening faces west, with the original main entry recessed on the east side under a concrete lintel, fitted with double doors. A vestry extends east from the southeast corner, similar in design to the porch with concrete parapet to its flat roof. The six narrow single-light south windows are set to the left, each in a raised concrete frame. The east end is windowless, with three windows to the north side.

The interior presents an impressive single space with white-painted brick walls supported by six laminated-wood trusses of dramatic form, creating a nave and south aisle. The trusses are of an overall N-shape, carrying roof-beams that slope from north to south. A raking upright on the sloping north wall supports the end of a massive cruck-like curved beam rising from the floor, its bottom end back-to-back with another raking beam rising to the underside of the roof-beam. The floor is wood-block, raised at the west end by one step for choir seating. The east end sanctuary is raised a step and paved with stone slabs.

The east end wall is whitewashed brick with a door to the right under concrete lintel opening into the vestry. Whitewashed brickwork is also found at the southwest corner, containing the entrance porch. The porch is now disused and infilled. The southwest porch has four strips of glazing with the lower lights blocked. The vestry contains a small kitchen and larger room beyond, with single narrow lights set high: three in the kitchen south wall, seven in the vestry south wall, and three in the vestry north wall.

The sanctuary is furnished with simple rails with black-painted metal uprights to timber rail. A matching pulpit stands at the left end. Contemporary matching fittings include a pulpit, lectern, stoup and candlesticks, along with stools and a seat. The altar is a free-standing ashlar piece, a massive slab with chamfered tooled edges carried on tooled-stone piers. On the east wall stands a black-painted metal equal-armed cross with a square crown-of-thorns motif around the intersection and the letters INRI flanking the top arm.

In the northwest corner, a full-height square enclosure with wide-spaced vertical slats contains the organ, made by G. Osmond of Taunton. The step at the west end features choir stalls of similar design to the altar rails. To the north of the stalls stands a monolith ashlar font with a twelve-sided bowl chamfered below to a hexagonal stem, the six sides broached to a twelve-sided base.