Church of St Teilo

Cadw's description

Location

On NW side of settlement and N side of minor road between village and Merthyr Mawr Warren.

History

C5 and C6 memorial stones excavated from the site (and now housed in small shed on N side of church) suggest an early foundation for the church. Of the medieval building here the font, stoup and a piscina survive. The church, said to be ruinous, was replaced by the present building 1849-51 by Benjamin Ferrey. John Pritchard was responsible for designing the interior fittings. A vestry was added in 1963.

Exterior

In an Ecclesiologically correct Early-English style, and consisting of a nave with W bellcote and S porch, and a lower, narrower chancel. Snecked limestone with sandstone dressings, steep slate roofs with coped gables. The 4-bay nave has stepped buttresses with gablets, a moulded corbel table and lancets with sill and impost bands. The porch is to the L of centre. Its S wall is ashlar with stopped chamfers to the angles, and has a doorway with a lancet arch, one order of attached shafts with stiff-leaf capitals and a hood mould with head stops. Small narrow lights to side walls. The S doorway to the nave has a 2-centred head, and a boarded door with ornate strap hinges.

The chancel is 2 bays with stepped buttresses, lancet windows with hood moulds and continuous sill band. L of centre is a priest's door with a lancet head and hood mould, and a boarded and ribbed door with strap hinges. Above the doorway is a stone sundial dated 1720 carried on corbels dated 1923. The E window is 3 stepped lancets under a continuous hood mould with foliage stops. A small round opening beneath the apex has a trefoil window. On the N side of the chancel is the gabled vestry, flanked by lancets in the chancel wall, and with lean-to on the W side over steps down to a vestry undercroft.

The nave N wall is similar to the S side. In the W wall is a doorway under a 2-centred head with hood mould and with one order of attached shafts and moulded capitals. The W door is boarded with ornate strap hinges. Above are 2 lancets with continuous hood mould and head stops. Between the windows is a head corbel beneath a tall wall shaft with stiff-leaf capital, which carries the octagonal bellcote. The bell frame is open and has 2 bells. Above a dog-tooth frieze is an octagonal spirelet crowned with a gilded weathervane.

Interior

The nave has a pointed arched-brace roof with one tier of wind braces. The principals stand on wall shafts with stylised stiff-leaf corbels. In the W wall is a similar but larger wall shaft carrying the bellcote. The chancel arch has polygonal responds, stiff-leaf capitals and a hollow-chamfered 2-centred arch. The chancel roof similar to the nave but with 2 tiers of wind braces and shorter wall shafts (with head stops beneath central trusses). The nave and chancel both have sill bands. The W windows have a continuous hood mould. The rere arch to the E window has free-standing clustered shafts in the centre flanked by plainer attached shafts, and with a continuous hood mould. In the N wall of the chancel is a doorway inserted to the vestry, with a lancet head and roll moulding, brought from Newcastle vicarage in 1963.

The floor has patterned tiles by Minton. The C13 plain, tub-shaped octagonal font is on a square base, and mounted on a stepped plinth with blue patterned tiles. Beside the font is a former stoup. A circular pulpit is on a thin pedestal in white stone with panelling and detached marble shafts. In the chancel is the shaft of a pillar piscina beneath a C19 stone shelf in the N wall, and with a scalloped bowl from another Norman piscina beside it.

In the chancel is glass by William Wailes contemporary with the church, depicting the Resurrection in the E window and Miracles of Christ in the S and N windows. In the W window is similar glass depicting Saints Teilo and Dewi. The nave N wall has glass commemorating the 1914-18 war, by A.J. Davies of Bromsgrove Guild, and by Jones and Willis, dated 1925.

Reason for designation

Listed Grade II*, the church of St Teilo is a fine example of the influence of the Ecclesiological Society to architectural design during the Anglican Revival of the 1840s.

The Norman stones in the churchyard are Scheduled Ancient Monument GM 169.