Church of St Tysoi

Church of St Tysoi

Parish church built in red sandstone rubble with pale stone dressings and stone tiled roofs with coped gables and cross finials. The building comprises a nave, chancel and west tower, with a south porch and north vestry.

The west tower is squat and square, quite plain with battlements. It has cambered-headed single bell openings with stone voussoirs and timber louvres, and a cambered-arched west door with thin stone voussoirs and a relieving arch over. The south side of the tower has a blocked ground floor window and a blank plaque.

The nave has large southwest cornerstones, a battered wall base and oak boards to the eaves. It is lit by flat-headed 15th-century Perpendicular-style windows with ogee tracery: one 2-light window to the left of the porch and one 3-light window to the right. A projecting rood-stair tower stands further to the right.

The 15th-century porch has large cornerstones and a big moulded pointed south entry with continuous mouldings of wave and hollow profile, similar to those at Llangwm Isaf. It has a small west side loop and bench seats within. The porch roof is 15th-century with a moulded wall plate and six-by-three panels, much renewed. A 15th-century moulded 4-centred arched west doorway contains a repaired studded oak plank door. The base of a stoup survives on the east wall.

The rood stair projection has an eroded purple stone 15th-century flat-headed single light with ogee tracery. The chancel south side has windows similar to those on the nave: a 2-light and a 3-light window, each side of a narrow ogee-moulded door with a malt-shovel stop. A 19th-century Bath stone 3-light east window has a 4-centred head and ogee tracery. The east wall has a battered base and large cornerstones. The north side of the chancel is windowless to the left; the 19th-century vestry to the right has a north door and a flat-headed ogee-traceried east end single light. The nave north side has chamfered boarded eaves, a battered base and two 19th-century flat-headed Bath stone 2-light windows with ogee tracery.

The interior is rendered, with most detail from the 15th century. The nave and chancel are divided by a chancel arch, both having 15th-century barrel roofs with moulded ribs, plaster panels and moulded deep wallplates. The nave has a 4-centred arch over a pointed west door, the original outer door before the tower was added, with double board doors. The west face is chamfered and pointed with a pyramid and bar stop, possibly 14th-century. Iron hinges show a former much lower floor level. The tower has a boarded flat ceiling. The nave roof comprises ten-by-eight panels. Nineteenth-century bench pews are present. The south door has a 15th-century segmental pointed head and depressed arched surround. A chamfered door to the rood stair, raised up, leads to a stone stair within; the upper door is lost. Eighteenth-century inscribed floor slabs are present in the floor.

The chancel arch has two wave mouldings with an outer segmental pointed arch with moulding carried down the jambs to approximately 1.4 metres above the floor, and an inner pointed arch dying into side piers, both with ogee mouldings and malt-shovel stops. Two steps lead into the chancel. Faded 19th-century painted text over the chancel arch reads "This is the Gate of Heaven". The long chancel has a roof of seven-by-eight panels with renewed bosses. A 19th-century Bath stone north door to the vestry is present, and a trefoil-headed recess is set in the left side of the south wall. The south doorway has a triangular head. Two steps lead to the sanctuary with 18th-century turned timber baluster rails. Stone flagged floors include some inscribed floor slabs in the chancel, dated to the 17th and 18th centuries.

A 19th-century octagonal font stands on an octagonal shaft. A plain 19th-century timber pulpit with Gothic timber traceried chancel-arch rails is attached nearby. Nineteenth-century stalls with open traceried fronts are present. The east window contains coloured stamped quarries of around 1858. The south chancel 3-light window has stained glass by Jones & Willis from the 1930s. The north nave glass, also by Jones & Willis dated around 1937, depicts the Good Shepherd and Sower. The south 3-light window contains 1988 stained glass by Geoffrey Robinson showing the seasons, harvest, rainbow and dove from Genesis 8:22.