Penallt Old Church (St Mary's)

Penallt Old Church (St Mary's)

This Grade I listed church is built mainly from squared blocks of red and grey local sandstone grading into conglomerate, with ashlar quoins and concrete tile roofs. Dressings and carved details are formed from local sandstone. The church comprises a nave, separate chancel, south aisle, west tower, south porch, and a rood-stair positioned against the north west corner of the chancel.

The tower is the oldest visible part of the church. It is a square tower of three stages without obvious division between them. The slightly different stonework above the cill level of the second stage may suggest the line of 17th-century heightening of a 14th-century tower. The lower half is built of unevenly sized blocks of stone in rough courses with ashlar quoins, while the upper part comprises more neatly cut blocks, more randomly coursed. The bottom stage has no door and contains only a west window with Decorated, possibly early 14th-century tracery. A large Victorian buttress stands at the north west corner where the tower meets the nave. The second stage has three ogee-headed trefoiled openings with louvres on the north, south and west faces; these are probably reset 14th-century openings if the tower was rebuilt at this level. The bell-stage above has a 2-light flat-topped louvred opening with stone mullion on the north and south faces and a single pointed arch opening on the east and west faces. The tower is topped with a saddle-back roof with coped gables and apex blocks.

The south side of the church shows the south aisle, which projects well forward from the in-line nave and chancel. The west gable wall of the aisle is blind. The south wall has three bays, the first covered by the south porch. The porch is probably early 16th century and projects well forward with blind side walls. The entrance has a recessed pointed arch with a gable cross. The porch has an arch-braced collar truss roof with longitudinal ribs. The inner door is in a 4-centred arch; both the door and the outer door are 16th century, with the door dated 1532 on its inside face. To the right, the aisle has two 3-light Perpendicular windows of early 16th-century date, featuring cusped ogee heads and dripmoulds. The east gable is blind, though its base is partly covered by a lean-to extension. Both gables are coped and have blocks for apex crosses. The chancel has a 3-light Perpendicular window with cusped ogee heads, probably 16th century, and the east window is similar. The cill of the east window was dropped during late 19th-century restoration when the east gable wall of the chancel appears to have been rebuilt, at least in part. The north wall of the chancel has a 2-light window with dripmould, probably 17th century. The gable is coped with an apex cross. The east gable wall of the nave has a small rectangular window on either side of the chancel ridge, lighting the rood-loft; the present windows appear 17th century. The gable is coped above with a block for a cross at the apex. The rood-loft stair abuts the gable wall on the north side. The north wall of the nave has three large added buttresses and two 3-light Perpendicular windows matching those on the south side; the eastern of these is almost entirely renewed.

The interior reflects the steeply sloping ground on which the church is built. The chancel floor is well below the nave, though without steps; the 1887 restoration created a continuous slope throughout. The church is plastered and whitewashed throughout, except for the chancel ceiling. A four-bay Perpendicular arcade with clustered columns separates the nave and south aisle. Pointed chamfered arches lead to the chancel and tower. Both nave and aisle have fine 16th-century waggon roofs with moulded ribs and carved bosses; the nave roof is said to have been restored to some degree in 1951. The chancel roof is boarded and, though of a similar type, is probably partly Victorian. The south side of this roof is carried on a remarkable bressumer or wallplate which carries the roof over the squint passage between the chancel and south aisle. The upper part of the rood-stair remains visible. The pews and alterations to the chancel ceiling date from the 1885–87 restoration. The altar rail, which has turned balusters, is dated 1745. The panelling on the east wall and the holy table date from 1916 and are said to have been carved by a Belgian refugee from Malines. A large dug-out chest in the chancel is probably medieval. The pulpit is Jacobean, reset with a Victorian base. The font may be partly old. The south aisle altar was retrieved from the ground outside the porch in 1965; it may be the medieval chancel altar, buried in 1887. Four bells are said to be dated 1662, 1700, 1751 and 1751. The only coloured glass, in the west window of the tower depicting Saints James and Christopher, dates from 1969.

The churchyard is well maintained and contains a separately listed lychgate and preaching cross, along with a good variety of 18th and 19th-century memorials, one of which is noted separately.