Church of Saint Cadoc

Church of Saint Cadoc

An Anglican parish church consisting of a nave and chancel with north and south porches and a west bellcote, built in rubble stone with details in red Cheshire sandstone.

The nave features three windows to the north and two to the south. These are flat-headed with three ogee-pointed lights and thick ovolo-moulded mullions set beneath deep hoodmoulds. A buttress has been added to the north side between the second and third windows. A door to the right, possibly dating to 1883, has red stone pointing and a board door. The substantial north porch has rubble stone side walls with red stone dressing to the plinth and quoins (some replaced in red concrete). It has an open timber gable with bargeboards and vertical posts over a segmental-pointed entry with carved spandrels. Single panels appear each side of the entry and three panels to the side walls. The west end displays rock-faced stone added buttresses to the corners and a two-light pointed west window in red stone with cusped tracery and hood. The gable has bargeboards, and a squat stone bellcote of approximately 2000, octagonal in plan with a stone octagonal short spire, sits above. The south side has a gabled former south porch, now a vestry, with rock-faced stone diagonal buttresses and Bath stone paired lancets with joined hoodmoulds set in the south gable.

The chancel is constructed of tooled stonework in narrow squared sandstone blocks. The east end features two slightly projected broad piers (corresponding to niches within) with corbelled coping and half-round relieving arches in the wall above. A long Bath stone two-light window with transom and traceried pointed head forms the centrepiece. The ogee hoodmould has carved heads—one male and one female—as stops, crockets and a large finial beneath a small cusped niche. An inscription appears beneath in Gothic raised letters, and a twentieth-century head in the niche is of Easter Island type. The east gable is coped with a cross finial, and diagonal buttresses of two steps rise to small octagonal ashlar finials with flattened tops. The chancel's north side contains a porch for the Williams family in matching stonework, gabled with a pointed arched doorway and stone slab roof. A studded plank door has its right side overlapping another two-step buttress with an octagonal finial. A chamfered pointed inner north door has pointed tracery applied to a square-headed door. Two inset small plaques appear on the north wall, one an eroded face and one with the Lamb of God. The windowless south side has a similar buttress to the left and two inset plaques, one to Dafydd Nicolas (died 1769) and one to John Jones (died 1820).

The interior has whitewashed plastered walls and a shallow curved plaster roof. The west end has a projection carrying the bellcote and framing a deep-set west window with a moulded segmental-pointed rear arch dying into piers. The north side has a moulded segmental-pointed head to the north door, presumably of 1883, and ovolo-moulded cambered heads to three-light windows. The south side has similar windows and a small Tudor arched south door to the right (now leading into the vestry) with six fielded panels, the top ones Tudor-arched.

The chancel arch dates to the 1840s and has plain imposts over paired thin piers with caps and bases, cut back on the west side where a screen has been removed. Fine carved angels stand above each side. The arch displays applied neo-Norman chevron ornament—double zigzag to the soffit and thin zigzag to the chamfered edges. A massive grotesque head forms the keystone. A single step leads to the chancel, which has a broad curved pointed ceiling divided by transverse thin ribs with leafs and rosettes at intersections with the ridge. The east end corbel is carved with the Lamb of God and the west end with a dragon. Moulded cornices with shield-bearing angels occupy the four corners; the east ones bear chevron and fleur-de-lys Williams arms. The north door has a rounded flat hood over it.

The east end altar is flanked by two tomb recesses with octagonal side piers and broad ogee arches with crockets and cusping. Carved leafs appear in the apex of each ogee, which is carried up to a carved finial. Each recess contains an early nineteenth-century panelled stone tomb chest with pointed panels carrying a fine Gothic effigy—a female to the left and a knight to the right. The backs of the recesses hold Gothic-lettered inscriptions in Welsh to medieval lords of Neath. Between the effigies stands a reredos with top moulding linked to the caps of the recesses' piers. The reredos comprises three painted stone panels carved with motifs, a stone altar on two columns. The east window has Y-tracery without the cusping visible externally.

Fittings include an octagonal granite font, chamfered below and broached to fit a tall square pier with a crude panel on the front bearing a fleur-de-lys in lozenge; the font is possibly medieval with a possibly seventeenth-century shaft. A carved oak lectern dates to around 2000 and is a near replica of a seventeenth-century eagle lectern that was stolen. Painted grained furnishings from approximately 1850–60 include pews with panel backs diagonally-boarded and moulded arm-rests. Pew frontals have open panels with turned balusters over pierced squares. The pulpit has a painted grained three-sided panelled front with tracery, carried on a stone base on three squat whitewashed Gothic columns. Stone steps ascend from the side with a brass rail. Turned balusters to the altar rails appear on three sides of the altar. Chancel chairs, said to have been for Aberpergwm, stand each side—joined rows of gable-backed chairs with crockets and finials and a sunflower panel to each chair back, with seven chairs on the north row and eight on the south. A reading desk in oak, likely mid to late nineteenth-century, features vesica panes each side carved with symbols and a plaque dating to around 1940.

Memorials in the chancel include a fine alabaster neo-early eighteenth-century style memorial to Captain Idris Williams, killed in 1915, and a fine bronze neo-Renaissance plaque with cherubs and scroll to Morgan S. Williams (died 1909) and his wife (died 1928). The east end has plaques each side, four with an ogee-pointed top piece providing unity (two each side in matching positions). The left side displays a plaque to George Williams (died 1796) and daughter (died 1800), with the ogee top to Mrs Williams (died 1792); a Tudor-arched Bath stone plaque to Rees Williams (died 1849); a white marble twentieth-century replica of an ogee-topped plaque to Rees Williams (died 1812) and Anne Williams (died 1834); and an armorial plaque to George Williams (died 1796), possibly also a replica. The right side has a plaque to William Williams (died 1788) with an ogee top piece, a Tudor style marble plaque to Lleishon de A Williams (died 1860), an ogee plaque to Winifred Harcland, and a plaque of 1784 to the family of Eleanor Aubrey of Ynyscedwen. A ribboned oval marble plaque in the chancel south honours Eliza and Maria Williams (died 1871 and 1873); a fine neo-early eighteenth-century plaque with bobbin-turned columns and broken pediment commemorates Captain G. Williams, killed in 1879 in the Zulu War; and a brass plaque honours Rees Williams (died 1863). The nave north holds two brass plaques to the Penrose family of Clynybont with dates of death from 1834 to 1905. The south side displays a marble neo-Grec plaque to Morgan Morgan of Abernanthir (died 1837) and his wife (died 1843).

The windows contain pretty leaded glass, presumably of 1883, in clear to blue narrow pieces except where stained glass appears. The east window displays four pieces of early sixteenth-century German stained glass set in patterned glass of flowers and scrolls on a clear ground, dating to around 1883. The panels show a monk kneeling before Saint Barbara (lower left), a Premonstratensian monk kneeling before Saint Augustine (upper left), Abbot John IV kneeling before an unshown image of Christ (lower right), and Abbot John V. von Münstereiful kneeling before the Virgin Mary (upper right). A north window of 1884 by Hardman depicts Christ with Saints Peter and John to D. Llewellyn.