Church of St Cadoc

Church of St Cadoc

This is a medieval parish church built of red sandstone rubble with ashlar dressings and stone tile roofs. It comprises a nave, chancel, west tower, and south porch, and is graded as a building of the highest architectural importance.

The south porch is gabled with a pointed entrance arch and features an elaborate wagon roof with moulded ribs and embattled wall plate. The walls of the porch on either side have chamfered slit openings. The entrance door is studded with applied fillets.

The nave's south wall contains late 15th-century Perpendicular windows. To the left of the porch is a restored window with two cinquefoil lights, ribbed panels above, and a flat head. To the right is a similar window with three cinquefoil lights and a plain buttress at the junction with the chancel. The south wall of the chancel has a two-light cinquefoil window, a moulded four-centred arched doorway with studded door, and a pointed arched window with three cinquefoil lights and panel tracery. The east gable is cement-rendered and contains a similar three-light cinquefoil window. The north wall of the nave has a two-light flat-headed window, and the north wall of the chancel has a two-light cinquefoil window.

The west tower is three stages with a tapered profile. It has a battered plinth with a moulded string course. The second stage features a two-light trefoil-headed window on its west face and chamfered slit openings below the string on the north and west sides. Each face of the bell chamber contains a Gothic arch opening with louvred two-light trefoils. The tower is topped with a castellated parapet with five merlons on each face. A stair turret is attached to the north-east of the tower and has three chamfered slit openings on its north side.

Interior

The interior has plastered walls and a stone flagged floor. Both the nave and chancel are roofed with wagon roofs featuring moulded ribs and moulded, embattled wall plates. The most notable surviving feature of the original rood screen is the finely carved rood beam of late 15th-century date, decorated with delicate pierced curvilinear work showing intertwined vine leaves and grapes.

The wall above the pointed chancel arch displays a painted achievement of the royal arms of Queen Anne. To the left of the arch is a squint; to the right is a piscina with a Tudor arched head. The nave's south wall contains a stoup. The pointed tower arch is screened by a 19th-century panelled screen whose headbeam is carved with a row of lunettes and bears inscribed dates of 1593 and 1617.

The chancel contains two fine 17th-century oak box pews. One is dated 1634 and decorated with guilloche ornament. The other, decorated with lunettes, bears the initials EM, said to be those of Edward Morgan of Great House, Llangattock Lingoed. The font is in Early English style with a hemispherical bowl on a plain cylindrical stem, mounted on a square 19th-century base.

The majority of interior furnishings date from the restoration of 1876–7, including an altar rail with cinquefoil-headed pierced panels, an altar screen with panels inscribed with the Lord's Prayer, decalogue, and creed, and an organ by W.G. Vowles of Bristol. The east window tracery contains fragments of medieval stained glass.

Wall Monuments

The church possesses a particularly fine series of engraved 17th- and 18th-century monuments.

South-west chancel: A tablet commemorating Jane Prichard (died 1660) in a bolection-moulded wooden frame, signed by T Brute.

North nave: Three rectangular tablets each with a curved apron enclosing a winged angel head commemorating Susana Watkins (died 1738), Phillip Christopher (died 1763), and John Arnold (died 1765), signed by P+T Brute.

South nave: Ann Watkins (died 1816), a gilded monument with an ornate pediment featuring a rectangular tablet framing an oval with riband cresting and festoons, signed by John Prichard of Clodock; Amey Prichard (died 1731) signed by T Brute; John Watkins (died 1777), a rectangular tablet with a winged angel at the head; John Watkins of the Cwm (died 1818), a rectangular tablet with a shaped head.

North-west nave: James Prichard (died 1796) signed by J Prosser of Abergavenny; Edward James (died 1804) signed by Lewis.