Church of St Donat

Church of St Donat

This is a church built of roughly coursed local lias limestone rubble with dressed quoins, though the rebuilt tower is constructed of much more carefully squared stone. The roofs are covered in Welsh slate of two differing colours with red ridge tiles. The building comprises a nave with a north porch, a chancel with the Stradling memorial chapel on its north-west side, and a south-west tower with a lean-to boiler room attached.

The north-west nave wall features a steeply gabled porch, probably dating to the 15th century, with a moulded arch, stone benches, and a medieval stoup within. The north-east bench has medieval crosses above it, and the south-west bench bears an early 19th-century memorial tablet to deceased centenarians buried in the churchyard. The porch has an old collar truss roof and a stone flagged floor. To the left of the porch is a nave window of two cinquefoil lights in a square head. A tall parapet on corbels runs along this side, with a coped east gable bearing an apex cross.

The Stradling Chapel is attached to the north-west side of the chancel, largely obscuring it from the north. It has plain walling on the north and west sides except for a small four-centred arch doorway in the north-west corner. Its east wall contains a late 14th-century three-light early Perpendicular window with a square head and dripmould. The chapel has steeply pitched gables with copings and apex crosses.

The north wall of the chancel, beside the Stradling Chapel, has a single light window with a cusped head and dripmould. The east gable has a much restored or renewed three-light Perpendicular window in an arched head, with a coped gable and apex cross above. The south-east chancel wall has two two-light arched Perpendicular style windows and an intermediate roll-moulded doorway with dripstone on corbels.

The south wall of the nave has two three-light Perpendicular windows in flat heads with dripstones and an intermediate four-centred arched doorway at ground level. To the east is a smaller, similar two-light window set high for the Rood. A large plain stone memorial below commemorates Morgan Stuart Williams (1846–1909) of Aberpergwm and St Donat's Castle. The parapet wall on corbels matches that on the north side.

The tall, largely featureless south-west tower has an embattled and pinnacled parapet on corbels. The nature of the stonework demonstrates that it was largely rebuilt, especially on the west side, in 1907. The work is very similar to other rebuildings by Halliday from that period, such as the tower of St Giles, Gileston of 1903. The tower has slit openings on the north-east and south-east walls. The buttressed south-west wall contains a single cinquefoil window above a stone and slate-roofed heating chamber added around 1907 but rebuilt since listing in 1982. The buttressed north-west wall has a two-light square-headed mullioned belfry opening below the parapet.

The interior is plastered and painted throughout except for the revealed stone features. A segmental arch with stone voussoirs leads from the porch. The nave roof, probably part of the 1903 repairs, has close-set arch-braced collar trusses. The chancel roof is of similar design but slightly heavier construction and apparently Victorian, forming part of the restoration of 1878. A semi-circular Norman chancel arch with angle columns and capitals separates the nave and chancel. Stone Rood-loft doors, both lower and upper, survive with stone corbels to the former Rood-loft. The nave has a stone paved floor. A tall double-chamfered pointed arch leads to the tower. A Norman font with two rows of small scale pattern and a tall conical wooden cover sits at the base of the tower. The chancel has a piscina and bracket.

Late 17th-century and 18th-century wall memorial tablets are present in the nave, including 18th-century ones to the Hyett family, such as one to Richard Hyett, steward to the last two Stradlings, buried 1749, and one to Abraham Mathews, who died 1697–8. The nave seats date to around 1921, while the choir stalls and communion rail are from 1878. The pulpit, designed by G E Halliday, dates to around 1907, as does the altar which incorporates the medieval mensa. The lectern is partly medieval and was given in 1913. A window depicting St Donat dates to around 1862 and is possibly by Clayton and Bell.

The Stradling Chapel was originally a 14th-century Lady Chapel, converted to its present use in the late 16th century. It contains three painted family portrait memorials (now photographic copies) dating to around 1590, commissioned by Sir Edward Stradling in commemoration of three different generations of the Stradling family. The chapel also contains a tomb and sculptured memorials, including one to Sir Edward Stradling (died 1609) and one to Sir Thomas Stradling, the last of the direct line, who died in 1738.

In the churchyard to the south-west of the tower, apart from the churchyard cross and a medieval stone slab, there are a number of early 19th-century memorials of interest, including a plain table tomb to Thomas John, who died in May 1800.