Church of St. Cadoc

Church of St. Cadoc

This is a Victorian church with a late medieval tower, built of rock-faced squared pink limestone blocks with greyish sandstone dressings; the tower is constructed of pink near-ashlar limestone. The roofs are covered in Welsh slate with lead to the tower. The building comprises a nave with north aisle and south porch, north and south transepts, chancel with north vestry, and a west tower.

The church is designed in Perpendicular style to match the existing tower, though some windows are Decorated in character, appearing to replicate earlier work. This includes the main west window in the tower, which is a Victorian alteration. The south side features a two-light window with flat drip, a gabled south porch, and two 2-light windows with cusped lights and arched heads with Perpendicular tracery. A continuous cill band runs around the south side. The transept and chancel have three-light windows, while the north transept has two 2-light windows with a roundel over, and the north aisle has three 2-light windows as before. Gable crosses adorn the east wall of the chancel and south transept. Stepped buttresses are positioned on all corners and between the windows on the north and south walls.

The tower has classical detailing, including the west door, and is thought to have been refaced in the 18th century as well as altered in the 19th century. It comprises four stages with string courses between: a west door, a blind section, a two-light west window, belfry louvres, a string, and a castellated parapet. The top six feet and castellations are believed to have been added in 1846, as evidenced by the different colour of the stone. A tall square stair turret on the north wall is topped by a weathercock.

The interior is Perpendicular in style with a three-bay arcade of octagonal piers and a double pier between the north aisle and the transept. The chancel arch is Transitional in style. Galleries occupy the north aisle and the west end of the nave, the latter formerly housing an organ and featuring a pierced timber front. The nave has a hammerbeam roof of five trusses, and the chancel has a three-bay arch-braced collar beam roof. The north transept serves as the Hanbury of Pontypool Park family pew with associated monuments. The south transept is the Memorial Chapel of the 2nd Battalion, the Monmouthshire Regiment, altered for this purpose in 1923. The pews date from the 1845 rebuilding, with poppyheads added in the 1890s. Other fittings and most of the glass are Victorian; the finest pieces include a tower window depicting King David and Saint Cecilia from 1888, and the east window commemorating the 176 dead of the Llanerch Colliery explosion in 1890, some of whom are buried in the churchyard.

The monuments include pieces surviving from the previous building. Seven 18th-century wall memorials in the north gallery include one to William Read, Physician, who died in 1769, inscribed with verses. A further nine memorials from the 18th and early 19th centuries are located on the south wall. Additional monuments include one to Molly Ann Hanbury Leigh (died 1846), and in the family pew a fine marble bust in the Rysbrack manner to John Hanbury (died 1734), and another to Capel Hanbury Leigh (died 1861).

The tower contains a peal of eight bells dating from 1888. The vestry was enlarged in 1923.