Church of St David

Church of St David

An Early English style church comprising a nave, lower and narrower chancel with a lower organ recess and vestry projecting as transepts, and a west tower. The building is constructed of coursed rock-faced Quarella stone with freestone dressings, and has steep slate roofs with eaves projecting on a moulded corbel table.

The buttressed nave is 3 bays long with 2-light windows featuring Y-tracery. A string course at impost level is carried over the windows as hood moulds, and the south wall also has a string course at sill level. The tower is 3 stages, with the upper stage slightly narrower. Stepped angle buttresses rise to gablets at the top of the middle stage, above which the buttresses are shallower. The west door has 2 orders of shafts with moulded capitals, a moulded arch incorporating a dogtooth frieze, and a hood mould with head stops. The north and south walls have large single-light windows in the lower stage and plain lancets to the middle stage, where the west side has a pair of lancets. The upper stage contains 2-light belfry windows with louvres, while an embattled parapet projects on a corbel table. A southeast stair turret rises to a gablet at the top of the middle stage, with plain lights at lower and middle levels, above which is a pair of trefoiled lancets below a blind quatrefoil.

The south transept, which houses the vestry, has angle buttresses. It features a cinquefoiled lancet to the west, a pair of larger cinquefoiled lancets under a linked hood with head stops in the south wall, and a cinquefoiled bullseye window in the gable. The east wall has a pointed doorway offset from the angle with the chancel, with a hood mould featuring foliage stops and a boarded door. The chancel has diagonal buttresses and features a 2-light window in the south wall, 3 stepped lancets to the east under linked hoods with head stops and with a pointed quatrefoil above. A string course is at sill level. On the north side is a 2-light window and stone steps to a crypt below the north transept. The north transept, housing the organ, has windows similar to the south transept with a doorway on the east side. A stack rises from the southwest side of the transept.

The interior is faced with Quarella stone with a continuous string course at sill level. Nave windows have tripartite rere arches with shafts, moulded capitals and hood moulds with head stops. The nave has an arched-brace roof with principals standing on full-height wall shafts. The pointed tower arch is low and narrow, defined by a continuous hollow moulding. The 2-centred chancel arch has one order of attached shafts, moulded capitals, hood mould and head stops. The chancel is reached up 2 steps. Arches leading into the organ recess and vestry have continuous wave mouldings and hood moulds with head stops. A full-height arch defining the sanctuary within the chancel has clustered attached shafts and moulded capitals. The rere arch to the east window is richer than the nave windows, having clustered shafts with annulets. The chancel has an arched-brace roof and a cornice bearing shields. Beyond the sanctuary arch it is richer with gold-painted bosses. Twin sedilia have clustered shafts and moulded capitals, trefoil arches with foliage to the spandrels, while the arches have an inner order of dogtooth and linked hood mould with foliage stops. They stand adjacent to a trefoil-headed piscina.

The Perpendicular-style font is octagonal with a panelled stem, while alternate faces around the bowl have relief carvings of a fish, Agnus Dei, ark and dove. The stone pulpit is polygonal, has openwork arcading over a blind quatrefoil frieze, and stands on a moulded pedestal. The pews have simple moulded bench ends, while the pews to the east have carved ends. Two priest's stalls have carved ends and openwork fronts, while the choir stalls have openwork seat backs and stall fronts.

The east window contains figures of Christ and Saints George and Paul. In the nave south windows are figures of Saints David and Michael at the east end, dating to around 1906, and Saints George and Michael in a commemorative window by Jessie Bayes to Captain Glyn Rhys Williams (died 1943). Two windows in the north wall also have glass by Bayes, commemorating Rhys Rhys Williams (died 1955) and Juliet Rhys Williams (died 1964), while at the east end is a window commemorating Emma Eleanor Williams.