Church of Saint Samlet

Church of Saint Samlet

Anglican parish church built from rock-faced Pennant stone with Bath stone dressings and slate roofs. The church comprises a five-bay nave with a porch positioned in the second bay, a seven-bay aisle on the north side, and a chancel with an attached south tower.

The exterior walls are punctuated with 2-light windows featuring foiled circles set within pointed heads. The porch and west door have rounded jambs with mouldings that die in. The west door is surmounted by an ashlar gable and flanked by two buttresses, with a large 3-light window above it. The clerestory is lit by ten windows on each side, arranged in pairs with varied foils — trefoils, quatrefoils and sexfoils. The east window is a substantial 5-light composition with two trefoils and one sexfoil to its traceried head.

The south tower rises in four stages separated by string courses. A stair tower occupies the north-east angle, capped with an ashlar half-octagon spire set against the second stage. Above the third stage, clasping buttresses have gable caps. The top stage is finished in ashlar with corbels supporting battlements, the central battlement being slightly stepped up.

The tall interior displays elaborate naturalistic stone carving in the Ruskinian manner. The walls are plastered and painted, with five-bay arcades of painted ashlar supported by heavy squat columns raised on high bases. The columns carry very large leaf-carved capitals representing varied plant species rendered with botanical accuracy. The pointed arches of the arcades have double-chamfer mouldings and hoodmoulds. The clerestory lights are paired, and the nave roof has high arch-braced scissor-trusses. The aisle roofs are lean-to structures with arch braces springing from wall-posts on corbels, beneath pointed east arches.

A massive chancel arch with corbelled columns and leaf capitals adorned with armorial shields dominates the east end. The arch and hoodmould feature keeled moulding. Three steps lead to the chancel, which is flanked on each side by low Gothic timber rails set on L-plan stone coping. The chancel roof is panelled diagonally with boarded construction, featuring transverse ribs on corbels. A vestry door opens to the north. The sanctuary floor is tiled, and the east wall is panelled with work of 1930 date. A painting on zinc depicting the Ascension, also of 1930 and executed in Gothic 19th-century style, hangs between pointed arches on either side; the south arch is blind with a screen below.

The altar rail, with cast-iron branched uprights resembling those in St Thomas Church, appears to be 19th century in style but is dated to 1931.

Fittings include a brass eagle lectern and an oak traceried panelled pulpit of circa 1930 standing on a 19th-century base with a trilobe shaft. The stalls date to circa 1930. The organ, a large instrument with painted pipes, was made by Leonard Stanley of Gloucestershire.

Memorials include a large 1889 charities plaque on marble at the west end, a fine Baroque cartouche plaque to Justina Popkin of Forest (died 1749), a plaque to David Jenkins the builder (died 1818), and a plaque to Reverend J. Davies, a dissenting minister (died 1821), with other Davies family memorials extending to 1837. A neo-Grec plaque commemorates William Jones of Glanbraine (died 1799) and his descendants to 1860.

Stained glass includes several 20th-century works. The north aisle fourth window, "Heavenly Power of Love" (1986), is by Tim Lewis. The north aisle fifth window (1934) shows the Angel at the Tomb in old-fashioned circa 1900 style by G. Maile. The south aisle third window, "The Creation" in six roundels (1999), is by Colwyn Morris of Glantawe Studios. The south aisle fourth window features abstract glass in clear and brown tones, incorporating one hundred clear bubbles symbolising one hundred years of the church, three red bubbles representing three donors, and dated 1980 by Tim Lewis. The south aisle fifth window displays symbols of the New and Old Testaments (1990) by Colwyn Morris. The east window comprises patterned quarries with small symbols of the Evangelists and others. The west window, dating to the 1920s, features Saint David, the Lamb of God and Saint Samlet above three small scenes, with a Christ figure in a large sexfoil above.