Church of St Madoc

Church of St Madoc

The church is built of random local sandstone rubble with some cut and dressed stones, particularly in the quoins. The roofs are of stone slates, except for the upper parts of both pitches of the main nave roof, which are of interlocking tiles; the tower roof is presumably lead. The plan comprises a nave with a north aisle, south porch, chancel and west tower.

The south wall of the nave is in three bays with the porch projecting from the central one. The left corner has a clasping buttress, followed by a probably 17th-century two-light window with a dripmould. The porch is steeply gabled with a coping and apex cross. The doorway is moulded and has an ogee drip; the inner arch is chamfered and pointed, with a Victorian plank door featuring strap hinges. The right-hand return wall has a single-light window. Stone corbel brackets support the gutters. To the right is a three-light Perpendicular window with cusped heads. Corbel brackets and stone verge finish the east gable. The chancel has a lower roofline and is set down. It begins with a single-light window with a trefoil head, then a priest's door with a largely Victorian moulded frame, followed by a two-light Perpendicular window as before with a dripmould and label stops. Corbel brackets and stone coping finish the gable with an apex cross. The east gable has a three-light Perpendicular window with ogee heads and a depressed arch, which is a Victorian alteration showing signs of reconstruction, particularly in the cill; the walling is otherwise medieval, indicating that the present window has a lower cill than the Decorated original. The north return wall of the chancel has another single-light window as before, then comes the Victorian vestry. This has a two-light trefoiled window in the east return and a larger one in the north gable with a quatrefoil in the arch above. A plain arched doorway gives access; the gable is coped with a chimney as finial. The west return of the chancel and the north wall of the nave are mostly covered by the Victorian north aisle, which has three pointed trefoiled-light windows and a swept roof. The west end of the nave wall has a small lean-to sexton's store and another clasping buttress. The tall square west tower has a pronounced taper. The tower is plain walling until the bell-stage, which has a wide louvred opening on each face apart from the west face to the road, where it has been narrowed to a slit. A castellated parapet on corbels sits above.

The interior is plastered and painted throughout and is now almost fully Victorian in character, apart from the plaster, with only rere-arches and a few other features visible from the medieval period. The floor levels have been substantially changed, as can easily be seen from the tower arch and the south porch entrance. The north arcade was built to suit the new floor level, comprising three bays of pointed Early English style arches. The chancel arch was widened and an arcade with a stiff-leaf capital was put into the north wall of the chancel. The furnishings and fittings are all Victorian except for the chancel screen and rood-beam, which is a circa 1920 memorial to the First World War, and the reredos, which is dated 1905 and was made by Veall and Sant of Cardiff, with statues carved by Wormleighton of Cardiff. This reredos is set between tall cusped niches for saints, which are 13th-century. The south nave window glass is dated 1910 by Gerald Moira. The font is post-1933 in its present form, although the bowl is medieval; it is a Prichard design based on that at Beaulieu Abbey and was carved by Crisp of Leamington. Panelled wagon roofs cover both nave and chancel, both Victorian in date. Some good marble wall monuments date from the late 18th and early 19th centuries. The church contains two bells dated 1635 and 1677.