Bettws Newydd Church

This is an Anglican parish church, dating to the 19th century and constructed of rubble stone with large corner stones. Much of the tracery is in red sandstone, and the building is covered by a stone-tiled roof. The church consists of a combined nave and chancel, a west bellcote, a west porch, and a northeast vestry addition. The gables are finished with 19th-century coping and cross finials.

The west bellcote is built of rubble stone with a coped top and features two arched bell openings. The west porch has a moulded pointed doorway in the Perpendicular style, shafted with ogee and hollow mouldings. Single lights flank the doorway, the north light restored in the 19th century with tracery and pierced spandrels, and the south light simpler. Stone seats are within. The roof of the porch is an open panel roof of 6x3 panels, retaining its original moulded wallplate. The inner door is pointed and chamfered, with broach stops, and features a studded oak plank door with moulded applied strips. A slight projection for a rood is evident on the south wall. Two much renewed Perpendicular windows are on the left, alongside the door, and one similar window is on the right. These windows are flat-headed with recessed cusped tracery. A narrow, Tudor-arched and moulded door with broach stops leads into the church; it is fitted with a plank door. The rood projection has quoins and a small, renewed Perpendicular traceried light at the top right. The east end wall has been much restored and contains a three-light, deeply recessed east window with a four-centred arch and panel tracery, also much renewed.

The northeast vestry has a lean-to roof, ashlar coping, and a square chimney at the southwest corner. A two-light east window, made with reused, shortened stone from the north wall, is set within the vestry. A single 19th-century two-light window is on the north side of the nave.

The walls are heavily pointed rubble. The west door has stone voussoirs forming a cambered head. The north wall contains a 3-meter-long shallow recess with renewed coving above. The south wall has a narrow red stone door leading to the rood stairs, with a flattened arch. The 19th-century northeast lean-to serves as both a vestry and a partial transept. The nave features a fine barrel roof constructed of 6x6 plastered panels, a moulded wallplate, moulded ribs (some renewed), and 19th-century bosses. The chancel roof is similar, with 4x6 panels, mostly restored, and an original moulded wallplate.

A remarkable oak screen stands in the centre of the church, consisting of five panelled bays on each side of the central doorway. The side bays incorporate timber tracery above and reused early 18th-century panelling below. A projecting loft is situated beyond the screen, plastered underneath and supporting a finely carved beam depicting an undercut vine and oak trail. The front of the loft is panelled into 14 bays, with pierced tracery to the panels and affixed ogee crocketted arches in front of each panel. Moulded posts are present, as is a top rail carved with a leaf trail. The tympanum above the screen is designed in a cross form and includes two small windows with three-light timber tracery in the panelling. The rear of the screen has a heavy coved and moulded beam, while the doorway features crocketted finials to attached shafts, a depressed arched head with traceried spandrels, and panels with hollow-moulded mullions. The tympanum above the screen is again cross-shaped.

A bowl font, with a rope-mould over a band of half-round reeding on its underside, stands in the church. It has a hexagonal shaft and a splayed base with "malt-shovel" panels. A small piscina is set low on the south side of the chancel. A large, five-sided corbel with beaded angles is affixed to the east wall. Other furnishings include 19th-century bench pews, communion rails, a lectern, and east wall panelling, alongside an altar table constructed from reused 18th or late 17th-century panelling.