Church of St Cynwyd

Church of St Cynwyd

This Grade II* listed church is built of coursed Pennant sandstone with limestone and igneous rock intrusions, and has a slate roof. The building comprises a nave with a west tower, a south porch added in 1893, and a 14th-century chancel that was largely rebuilt in the 19th century.

The tower is a prominent feature with a single tall stage including the bell chamber. It rises above a moulded plinth and is quoined for part of its height only. Above two string courses the tower is set back and carries a crenellated parapet with crocketed square pinnacles at the corners. The west door has wave moulding, heart moulding stops, and a bold hood, with a large 19th-century four-light window set above it. The tower contains a pilaster stair in the southeast corner and a shallow stone barrel vault inside. The 15th-century tower arch is tall with two chamfered orders and rises from a floor level raised three steps above the nave.

The nave is covered by a late 19th-century arch-braced collar roof with principals rising from wall posts on stone corbels. There is a widening on the north side for the former rood stair, with a door opening from the south side of the nave and a gallery opening above. Two ogee-headed windows light the north side, while the south side has large 19th-century two and three-light cusped windows with labels and carved mask dropped terminals. West of the porch are two 19th-century cinquefoil lancets, between which is reset a 1686 sundial inscribed E P MEDEDIT / DE TONDY (the iron gnomon is missing). Rere-arches with fleurons adorn the 19th-century windows.

The 1893 south porch is of Quarella stone with a gabled roof. The bold casement moulding carries the date 1893 and the monogram of Olive Talbot on fleuron shields, rising to an ogee peak above which is a nodding-ogee niche containing a limestone figure of St Cynwyd.

The 14th-century chancel is of generous width with single trefoil-headed lights, though the walling has been reset or refaced. The south side of the sanctuary has twin ogee-headed window lights. There is a two-light 19th-century window on the north side and a three-light east window with nook shafts. A stone panel inscribed to Dafydd Richard is set in the south wall, and a weathered stone head is set above the filleted roll-moulded 14th-century priest's door. The chancel has three roof bays, also arch-braced, with two moulded purlins. A stone cornice is enriched with rectangular leaves. The 19th-century chancel arch is set on impost corbels and has two 14th to 15th-century quatrefoils to either side above. Three steps rise to the altar.

The interior features a late 19th-century carved and painted wooden reredos (restored in 1984) showing St Cynwyd holding a model of the church, set against a dado of panelled oak. There is a low wrought iron chancel screen and an oak octagonal pulpit. The font is a plain octagonal limestone example, tapering to a square base, probably medieval. Remarkably rich encaustic floor tiles cover the chancel floor. Four late medieval oak pews remain in the church (a fifth is in the National Museum of Wales), and there is an oak parish chest.

The church contains six tower bells cast by Abraham Rudhall of Gloucester in 1730. These were recast and hung in a new frame in 1893, then rehung again in 1953.

The stained glass includes an Ascension of 1893 by A Saville of London in the east window, grisaille glass in the north and south windows, and a tower west window.

The monuments are notable in number and quality. In the nave north side are found late medieval to 17th-century incised crosses (including one with a representation of a chalice and another with triple crosses joined at the base with a semi-circle), a relief cross pattee inscribed to Mary Powel (1671), and a sandstone wall slab with semicircular top to William Hopcyn (died 1707). Larger monuments include a wall tablet with fluted pilasters and urn to Hopkin Hopkin (died 1742) with multiple family members listed to 1945, a stone tablet to Ann ab Gwillim Treharn (died 1814), and a slab with skull and crossbones to Jenkin Griffith (died 1909). Later monuments include a white marble tablet on slate to David Thomas (died at Ypres, 1917), a Carrara marble sarcophagus tablet on slate to Evan Rees of Gadlys Factory (died 1923), and a marble tablet with corner crosses to Catherine Maddock (died 1922). There are also two brasses and an incised stone inscribed ME.1616 WT.1596 / MM.1608. On the south nave wall are tablets commemorating the renovation of the tower in 1931 and the Bryncynon Bequest (also after 1931), along with three brasses. In the chancel south wall is a simple slate tablet to Richard Penril Llewelyn, vicar from 1841 to 1891, and his wife, and an elegant sarcophagus tablet in marble on black stone to Jenkin Thomas Jenkins of Gelly (died 1876), with one brass. A famous black grave slab with inserted brass is set in the floor, a later memorial to Ann Thomas, 'y ferch o Gefn-ydfa'. Under the tower are six 17th-century and later gravestones, brought in for protection, including those of Ann Thomas and Wil Hopcyn. Fragments of the earlier building are preserved in the porch, including a 13th-century column base later used as a sharpening stone, and a moulding.