Church of St Illtyd

Church of St Illtyd

This small church comprises a nave, chancel, north vestry, south porch and west bellcote, constructed of coursed rubble with red banding or individual stone blocks. The walls are finished with Bathstone quoins and dressings, raised copings and cross finials, all under slate roofs.

The windows are predominantly pointed arched with hoodmoulds. Most are single trefoiled lancets or plate tracery windows with two or three trefoiled lights. The west end features a two-light window with a large circle beneath the arch and small quatrefoils in the spandrels; the end bosses of the hoodmould bear carved heads of a man and woman. The chancel contains two single-light windows, whilst the east window is a three-light design with a large circle containing a cinquefoil. The south side of the nave has two two-light windows, each with a quatrefoil in a circle under the arch.

The west bellcote is supported on a corbelled relieving arch, with stepped sides and a gabled roof to the bell chamber. The bell chamber contains two trefoiled openings for the bells.

The south porch has a gabled roof with steep pitch offset to the left, with a chamfered pointed arched entrance topped with a sun-dial mounted above the arch, which was donated in 1988 and replaces an earlier one. The entrance has late 20th-century decorative steel gates. The porch contains side benches and a quarry tile floor, with a single light to its left. The north side of the nave has a single trefoiled light offset to the left, probably respecting the medieval arrangement.

The later lean-to vestry on the north side of the chancel has two short pointed windows to the north in heavy surrounds and a pointed doorway in the west end with a planked door.

The interior is accessed through a pointed arched doorway into the nave, which has a scissor-braced roof. The nave contains a central aisle flanked by benches with curved arm rests and a coloured quarry tile floor. The small pointed chancel arch is of grey stone with 15th-century dressings, three orders of mouldings and narrow attached shafts to the interior jambs with rounded, fluted caps.

A medieval octagonal font sits to the southwest of the nave, decorated with chip-carved detail. The south and northeast faces depict two stylised trees, whilst the east face bears two chip-carved circles, one above the other. The remaining sides have large rosettes. An octagonal wood-panelled pulpit stands to the left of the chancel arch.

The chancel has a scissor-braced roof with choir stalls to each side, featuring wood-panelled fronts decorated with blind cusped arches. The east window contains brightly coloured stained glass of 1868 by Joseph Bell of Bristol, depicting the Nativity, Crucifixion and Resurrection. The south windows of the chancel contain similar stained glass bearing the heraldic emblems of the Samuel Gibbon family, with a shield to the left and a boar's head to the right.

The chancel floor contains an Elizabethan tomb stone between the choir stalls, dedicated to William Gibbon of Trecastle and dated 1584. A cast iron grave marker is set into the chancel wall at the southwest corner, dedicated to a later William Gibbon (died 1759) and bearing a large heraldic shield in relief. To the right of the vestry door is a stone panel dedicated to the Reverend Griffith Griffiths of Eckington, Worcestershire (died 1812), who was rector of the parish but mainly absent; the memorial was dedicated by those "who took pleasure in his aquaintance". Between the south windows of the chancel is a marble wall monument to Robert Savours of Trecastle (died 1818) and other members of his family. A brass plaque over the vestry door commemorates Private William Lewis who died in the Boer War in 1901. On the north wall of the nave is a large marble tablet to Arthur Jenkin Richards, son of the Reverend Richards, who was killed in the First World War.