Church of St Mary Magdalen, Pyle with Kenfig.

The Church of St Mary Magdalen in Pyle with Kenfig is a largely 19th-century structure incorporating fabric from earlier dates. It consists of a nave and chancel, a 19th-century north vestry, and a square, unbuttressed west tower with an attached west porch. The nave has three pairs of three-light, trefoil-headed windows on the south side. The chancel has three trefoil-headed lights of 19th-century date set in a southern extension, all under a continuation of the roof, and three cusped east lancets grouped under a single arch. A short west tower features a stair extension on the south side, with small rectangular openings and a crenellated parapet raised on corbels, incorporating small gables for the pitched tower roof. The gabled west porch contains a hollow-chamfered stone doorway, likely of 15th-century origin, with an oak door and a blocked south entrance. A 19th-century door with a shouldered head provides access to the north vestry.

A wide round-headed arch connects the tower to the nave. The nave walls are plastered, and the nave has a four-bay open timber roof, with four robust trusses of medieval or 17th-century origin. These trusses are arch-braced with collars and carry two tiers of purlins, the feet of the principals rising from within the walls. The chancel is raised two steps and accessed through a 19th-century arch, the inner arch order resting on corbels. A two-bay late 19th-century roof of a similar design to that of the nave covers the chancel. A rear-arch is visible behind the east lancets, and the chancel floor is finished with encaustic tiles. The organ chamber opens under an arch on the north side, with the vestry situated to the east. A small light from the tower stair illuminates the west side of the nave, and a rectangular opening is present above the entrance door from the porch to the tower.

A Norman font, made from a handsome limestone tub decorated with five rows of scallops and a rope moulding around the lip, is a significant feature. It is said to have been brought from the earlier Church of St James. The east window, approximately dating to 1920, is a war memorial by C Powell, and a south nave window was created by Frank Roper of Penarth. A bell from 1644 is also present.

Thirteen memorial slabs are set into the plastered nave walls; these are simply but elegantly lettered, with dates ranging from 1696 to 1793, with one tablet dating to approximately 1820. The north wall displays memorials to Anne and Edward Thomas (circa 1896), Rees Thomas and his family (1793), Elizabeth Yorwerth Pinho (1742), and Margaret Yorwerth (1781). The south wall has memorials to David Edmond (1765) and Elizabeth Beynon (1784), and Elisabeth Williams of Sker (1722). Within the chancel are memorials to Richard Lowther (1698), Evan Lyddon (1727), John Morgan (1820), Evan Waters and Anne (1694), Charles Aylward (1728), Richard Waters of Cornelly (1698), and a partially obscured memorial to Richard … . Two large slabs of polished stone, believed to be originally altar slabs, are located in the porch.