Church of Saint Teilo

Church of Saint Teilo

Anglican parish church built in sandstone rubble with freestone to the tower and stone tiled roofs. The building comprises a tower, long nave with central south porch, and chancel, with ashlar 19th-century coping to gables and cross finials.

The fine west tower rises in three stages with string courses in pink sandstone. The parapet is rebuilt and embattled, crowned with three tall crocketted finials in yellow sandstone. A northeast embattled square stair tower adjoins. The tower stands on a raised plinth with heavy ogee moulding. The west doorway is moulded and pointed, fitted with a 19th-century door and topped by a tiny square deep-set light. Similar small lights appear to the second stage, set low on the north and south faces and high on the west face. The top stage contains small two-light flat-headed bell-openings recessed with cusped ogee heads and stone louvres. Stone rainwater spouts project from the centre of each face.

The nave retains a 15th-century heavily moulded timber eaves cornice at its left end only. A late 19th-century single light window stands to the left of the porch, featuring cusping, two small quatrefoils, a flat head and deep hoodmould. The porch itself has 19th-century coping, a 19th-century restored segmental pointed moulded arch, and a 19th-century roof within, with a plank door. To the right of the porch are grouped a small medieval cusped lancet, a large original Perpendicular segmental pointed three-light window with panel tracery, and two superimposed rood lights renewed in the 20th century. A deep-set two-light window below has a flat head with cusped ogee heads to the lights, and a flush two-light above. The south side of the chancel contains a single lancet with cusped head, a narrow door with segmental pointed head, and a recessed three-light window with arch-heads to the lights, all 19th-century work in sandstone. The east end has a battered wall-base and a three-light window of stepped lancets, also 19th-century sandstone. The north side has one small cusped lancet to the right. The north side of the nave displays a coped projection for the rood-stair to the right with a small flat-headed flush two-light window with chamfered surrounds, and a 15th-century moulded timber eaves cornice carried on small corbel blocks. Two large late 19th-century two-light windows with cambered heads, deep-hoodmoulds and Perpendicular style tracery complete the north elevation. The nave walls have a battered base.

The interior features a segmental-pointed tower arch with stone voussoirs and a late 19th-century timber screen. A narrow Tudor-arched door leads to the stair-turret, which has a high ringing floor. The walls are stripped of plaster, and the nave has a boarded roof of 1890. The north rood stair is entered via a diagonally set Tudor-arched door with hollow moulding and traceried relief panels on the right side jamb. The stair turns to provide access to the pulpit through a Tudor-arched door in the east wall of the nave. The chancel arch dates to 1884-5 and is pointed with half-octagonal shafts. A plank south door, possibly 18th-century, has strap hinges and a segmental-pointed over arch. The large south three-light Perpendicular window sits in a Tudor-arched recess with a seat within. The lower of the two rood lights has a lintel corbelled from the left with triangular relieving stones over it, matching similar stones over the rood stair opposite. The chancel has a double recess to the north with chamfered jambs and heads. The east window is wholly 19th-century. A small trefoil-headed piscina adorns the south wall, and a seat sits within the three-light window. The roof of 1886-7 features collar-rafters with scissor bracing.

A retooled medieval hexagonal font with two chamfers below stands on a splayed stem with malt-shovel panels. The furnishings include 19th-century pine pews, mid-19th-century poppyhead desk and stalls, and a 20th-century panelled pulpit. Late 19th-century brass standards support the altar rail.

Memorials are distributed throughout the church. The north nave contains an oval plaque to David Morgan of Bryngwyn, died 1816, a well-lettered plaque with winged cherub head to Benjamin Nicholas, died 1734, signed T. Brute, a rustic Adam-style memorial to William Morgan, 1804, with tapered fluted pilasters, urn top and obelisks signed H. James, and a very large marble plaque to Elizabeth Jones of Clytha House, died 1787, with high tapering top and long encomium inscription. The south nave holds a rustic Adam-style plaque to John Howells, died 1798, and his wife, died 1803, with fluting, paterae and obelisk top with urn between two small obelisks with pineapples, signed G. Greenway of Wyesham. The east window contains stained glass of 1969 by Celtic Studios depicting Christ in glory.