Church of St Mary

Church of St Mary

A simple Italian Romanesque style parish church comprising a nave with north-west tower, shallow chancel and added north-east vestry. The rubble stone walls are intended for render and have hammer-dressed quoins to the pilasters, a coursed rock-faced plinth, and lighter freestone dressings to the windows. The nave contains eight narrow bays with pilaster strips. Tall round-headed windows have thin attached shafts and a sill band. The window in the left-hand bay is shorter as it sits above a round-headed doorway with chevron moulding in low relief, which has a replaced door. The north wall of the nave is similar to the south. The three-bay west wall has a wider central bay beneath a gable, which contains a round clock face in a freestone surround. The central bay has a pair of round-headed windows similar to those on the south side, with a similar single window to the right-hand bay. The left-hand bay features the projecting four-stage tower.

The tower has a round-headed west doorway with one order of shafts, scalloped capitals and an arch incorporating chevron and roll mouldings. The hood mould has scalloped stops. The north side has a single round-headed window in the lower stage. The middle stages are recessed between angle pilasters. A blind narrow light appears in the second stage. The third stage contains a five-bay arcade of narrow round-headed arches, the middle three of which are glazed. The arcade continues around the remaining faces. Two tiers of offsets sit above the third stage, making the bell stage narrower. The bell stage has two tall round-headed belfry openings with louvred upper parts. The angles feature thin attached shafts.

The three-bay east wall has round-headed windows to the right and left, and a blocked round-headed doorway lower left. The chancel is a low round apse to the central bay, which contains three tall narrow round-headed windows (partly obscured by the projecting vestry on the north side) and is rendered between pilaster strips and a sill band. The pediment has a thin cornice similar to the west wall.

The north-west vestry has a lintelled doorway on its west side below an oculus and with a foundation tablet, while the east gable end has three round-headed windows.

The barn-like interior, with its west gallery and minimal chancel, was designed to maximise capacity and was built with an emphasis on preaching rather than ritual. The nave has a flat plaster ceiling divided into eight bays by thin beams on corbels. The nave, north, south and west nave walls, and chancel all have string courses at sill level that terminate with head stops. The round moulded chancel arch has two orders, the outer order resting on scalloped capitals. It is flanked by similar smaller arches (blocked to the right, leading to the vestry on the left). The chancel has a string course at impost level carried over the windows as hood moulds.

The west gallery is carried on two polygonal wooden posts and has a panelled front. The font is typical Norman style with a round bowl and stem and four detached round shafts with scalloped capitals. The added polygonal pulpit has open Gothic panels. The continuous chancel screen is late 19th century. It has a panelled dado, eleven lights with open Gothic tracery, the central light wider and forming the doorway, a cornice with vine trail, and brattishing intersected by polygonal finials. The communion rail is brass and is carried in twisted iron uprights with scroll brackets.

Attached to the south wall of the nave are two classical alabaster wall tablets by Jacob Morgan of Pontypridd. These commemorate Ann Davis (died 1852), with a relief of a woman in mourning, and Elizabeth Davis (died 1860), with a relief of a woman on her deathbed being taken up to heaven.

In the porch beneath the tower is a cantilevered stone stair to the gallery and belfry. A memorial tablet to the 1914-18 war is signed by 'Morgan'.