Church of St David

Church of St David

This is a medieval church comprising a tower, nave, chancel, and south porch, with a small modern infill at the north west corner. The walls are built of local rubble or axe-dressed masonry with surviving early windows in sandstone. The 19th-century restoration introduced new windows, gutter corbels, and coped gables with cross finials in oolitic limestone. The nave and chancel walls are battered at the foot. Slate roofs with tile ridges cover the building.

The masonry techniques of the chancel, tower, and porch differ slightly from those of the nave. The small tower serves as a distinctive architectural feature and is topped with a transverse saddleback roof. The masonry has been extensively repaired in red sandstone at the higher levels, with the top largely restored. Stone parapets project to east and west, supported on corbels of stone billets. A steeply pitched slate roof with raised gables completes the tower. 19th-century belfry lights open to the north and south, with slit windows positioned below them on both sides.

The windows reflect various periods. In the north of the nave is a small re-opened round-headed lancet with restored sill. The north of the chancel contains a cinquefoil-headed lancet and a walled-up two-light window with Y tracery. A small ogee-pointed window pierces the south wall of the nave, east of the porch. A two-light mullion window with lintel sits at high level in the west wall of the nave. The 19th or 20th-century restoration windows include an east window in Decorated style with three lights and an unstopped label. To the south of the chancel is a two-light window with Y tracery, while the south and north of the nave each have a two-light window with a top roundel.

The south porch doorway has a pointed arch in sandstone, chamfered externally with ogee stops at the foot and rebated inside, though the door is missing. The inner doorway features an equilateral pointed arch with slight chamfer carried to the ground. Side benches line the porch, and a sundial with iron gnomon sits over the outer arch.

Memorial slabs are built into the external walls: to Elizabeth Taylor (1764) and Matthew Jones (1737) on the east side of the chancel, and to Sarah Willis (1817) and others on the south side of the tower.

The large south porch is furnished with side benches and a two-bay 19th-century roof. The nave contains two blocks of late 19th-century pews and a timber floor, with a boarded ceiling and exposed quoins to the 19th-century windows. A scraped tub font on a single step stands near the south door. Low obtuse arches open to the tower and to the chancel, with the chancel arch supported by small corbels at springing level on each side.

A simple carved Gothic pulpit is positioned on the left, with a small blind arch in the chancel wall behind it. One step rises to the chancel, which is paved in large quarry tiles and furnished with oak communion rails featuring twisted balusters.

Interior memorials include a figured marble memorial in the chancel to William James of Burriss Green (1746) and his daughter Elizabeth; a pink limestone memorial to Silvanus Prosser, Rector of Port Eynon and Vicar of Llanddewi (1737), which contains curious errors and corrections of spelling; and a simplified classical pedimented memorial with battered pilasters to Anne Phillips (1833) at the right of the chancel. In the nave hang a brass plaque to those killed in the Great War and another to R James, churchwarden 1958–81. A list of incumbents since 1576 is displayed.