Church of St Teilo

Church of St Teilo

This Grade I listed church is built of coursed rubble composed of purplish sandstone with some larger blocks of red conglomerate, fairly closely set. The architectural ornament is in medium-grained sandstone ranging in colour from light red to yellowish fawn. The repairs carried out in 1709 and the restorations of 1880-94 can be recognised through the different character of their stonework, both being dated. The Tredilion Room, added in 1981, is similarly distinguishable. The roofs are all Welsh slates, with thick hand-split slates on the south slopes and smaller machine-cut slates on the north slopes.

The church comprises a nave with an integral two-bay chancel, a short two-bay north aisle, a short three-bay south aisle, and a north tower built as one with the north aisle. There is also a south porch and three chapels: the Triley Chapel opening from the north aisle, the Neville Chapel opening from the north side of the chancel, and the Wern-ddu Chapel opening from the south side of the chancel and the south aisle.

The west wall displays the plain door and window of the Tredilion Room to the left under a single-pitch roof. The gable end of the nave has Victorian stepped buttresses at either side with a three-light window with semi-circular headed lights within a pointed frame. Although this is of late seventeenth-century character, it is said to date from 1729. The coping and gable cross are Victorian additions.

The south wall of the nave features the gabled south porch projecting from it. In the angle between the porch and the nave is the chest tomb of William Denston (died 1839) with a spear-headed railed enclosure attached to the church. The porch has a pointed arch doorway, two-light windows in the side walls, copings and a gable cross, with a sundial above the door. The porch was partly rebuilt during the 1880-94 restoration (dated). The rest of the south wall contains the south aisle with three plain three-light windows and the gabled end of the Wern-ddu Chapel, which has a recessed three-light window with cusped heads and a stepped buttress to the right, probably a Victorian addition. It also has copings and a gable cross.

The east gable wall of the chancel is largely a rebuild of the 1880-94 restoration and features a three-light window.

The north wall of the aisle begins with the small Neville Chapel, which has a plain three-light window. This is followed by the east gable of the north aisle with a three-light Decorated window, probably of the fourteenth century. The north wall of the aisle is largely covered by the Triley Chapel, which has two plain three-light windows and a plain doorway in its west wall. The tower abuts the west end of the aisle. It has two stages: a tall lower stage with small stair windows and a lancet on the west wall to light the interior, with a string course separating it from the bell stage. The bell stage has two-light louvered openings with cusped heads and is topped by a moulded string course with two water shutes and a castellated parapet. The openings may date from the fourteenth century, while the parapet may be a fifteenth or sixteenth-century addition, or possibly part of the mid-nineteenth-century restoration work.

In the angle between the tower and the west end of the nave is the Tredilion Room, added in 1981, which has a plain three-light window in its north wall.

The interior dates from a number of periods and presents a confusing arrangement. The north nave arcade consists of four bays: from the west, a Transitional arch into the tower, a pointed arch punched through the wall without orders, a second Transitional arch, and a Perpendicular arch. The south nave arcade has three bays, two of which are Perpendicular arches with octagonal piers, while the easternmost is a punched hole in the wall. Both the nave and north aisle have sixteenth or seventeenth-century waggon roofs with brattished wallplates, which are partly damaged. The compartmented roof of the south aisle is of seventeenth-century type and may date from 1709, though it could equally be early twentieth-century, though there is no documentary evidence for this latter dating.

The arcades separating the Triley Chapel and the Wern-ddu Chapel from the chancel are particularly remarkable. They are of oak and date from the early sixteenth century. Both are of the same form but with differing detail in the carvings, particularly the rosettes running down the inner sides of the piers. The tower doorway is chamfered with a Caernarvon head and contains an ancient door with decorative strap hinges. The choir screen is in the fifteenth-century style but dates from 1891. The pulpit is in the Jacobean style but dates from 1893. The font has been recut on old steps. Two medieval oak pews with poppyheads are said to have come from London. There are two reused stone altars. The church contains four bells dating from 1508-46, 1665, 1792, and 1792. A benefactions board is present. Chandeliers and an oak vestry screen were designed by George Pace. There are some good eighteenth-century inscribed memorials. The reredos to the High Altar is a First World War memorial designed by W D Caroe. The church also contains modern stained glass.