Church of SS Julius and Aaron

Church of SS Julius and Aaron

A geometrical style church comprising a nave, lower and narrower chancel, and south porch. The walls have battered bases emphasised by a band of dressed stone, similar to the dressed impost bands. The masonry is coursed rubble in a combination of thin and thick courses, with red and grey stones chosen for their polychrome effect. The polychrome is more strikingly used for the voussoirs above the openings. The windows all have hood moulds with foliage stops. The steep slate roofs sit behind coped gables.

The three-bay nave has two two-light windows and the porch to the left. The porch has a two-centred arch with continuous wave moulding and narrow cusped lancets to the side walls. To the left of the porch is an elliptical wall tablet commemorating Anna Hansard, probably dating to the 18th century but with the date no longer legible. The chancel has three cusped lancets to the south wall, with sill as well as impost band, and a three-light east window. The north chancel wall has a single cusped lancet, to the right of which is an outshut vestry. The nave north wall has two windows, with the centre bay being blank. The west wall has two-light windows flanking a central buttress. The buttress has an offset with a gablet and continues upward to carry the belfry, which is corbelled out from the west wall. On its west side the belfry has an open pointed quatrefoil below the bell openings. The bell openings comprise two cusped lancets in each face, each opening having an open quatrefoil panel above the sill, and with linked hood moulds with foliage panels in the centre of each face. The small broached spire has a single tier of lucarnes.

The south doorway has a continuous wave moulding and a diagonal-boarded door with strap hinges. The windows have moulded rere arches. The roof is composed of closely-spaced scissor-braced trusses with diagonal boarding behind. Above the wall plate is a moulded cornice. In the west wall the belfry projects on corbels flanking the bell ropes, above which is a blind pointed quatrefoil.

The simple chancel arch has a continuous wave moulding and hood mould with foliage stops. The chancel has a richer three-bay roof. Arched-brace trusses rise from wall posts on foliage corbels, and have a single tier of windbraces, behind which are panels painted as a starry firmament. The east window rere arch has a hood mould with foliage stops. The vestry door in the north wall has a continuous wave moulding and diagonal-boarded door with strap hinges.

The font has a moulded octagonal bowl and base, while the square stem is set diagonally and has four attached shafts. The pulpit has blind Gothic arches and pointed trefoils. Simple pews have moulded ends. Only the east window contains stained glass, comprising an unsigned ascension commemorating Richard Jenkins of Llanharan House, who died in 1856. In the south-east corner of the chancel is a foliage corbel.

Memorial tablets have been salvaged from the old church. An elliptical tablet in the south wall of the nave commemorates Rees Powell (died 1758) of Llanharan House and his immediate family, said to have been descended from Einion ap Cadifor ap Collwyn, Prince of Dyfed. In the chancel is a simple tablet to William Gibbon (died 1810) of Trecastell, and a former 18th-century grave slab to the Matthew family of Meiros Farm, Llanharan.