Church of St. Deiniol

Cadw's description

Location

Close to the centre of the village, within churchyard entered by a lychgate E of the war memorial.

History

The present building was built in the mid C19 to replace an earlier church on the same site. Some details from the earlier structure have been incorporated in the door jambs and keystone of the external door of the north vestry which was added in 1873 when the church was repaired and reseated.

Exterior

Early English style church built of rubble masonry with limestone dressings. Steeply pitched slate roof with stone copings and corbelled eaves. Nave of 3 bays, with shorter narrower chancel to E, an added vestry to N of the chancel and a porch to W end of S wall of the nave. Porch with steeply pitched roof with cross at apex has a pointed arched entrance with single broach chamfered order, containing wrought iron side-hung gates. Nave with W bellcote of ashlar masonry, containing a single bell and surmounted by a cross, remains of cross socket at E and a single offset angle buttress at SE corner. Windows are 2-light with Y tracery apart from a single lancet window W of the porch. Chancel with cross socket at E end and single lancet window with cusped tracery in S wall. E gable with 3 stepped lancet windows. Vestry with square ashlar chimney at N end, single square headed window in E wall and a modern door in N wall with re-set medieval jambs and a pointed voussoir arch with a medieval carved human face forming the keystone.

Interior

Nave of 6 roof bays, chancel of 3 roof bays, with exposed collared trusses, braces carried down to wall posts and stiff leafed foliage corbels. Chancel is raised by 3 steps with a pointed arch of 2 chamfered orders, sanctuary is raised by a further step with mosaic floor and moulded rail on iron stanchions with floriate brackets. Vestry is reached through a pointed arched doorway to right and a wide segmental pointed arched opening to left, which has Tudor flower frieze carving set on composite piers and the date 1873 carved above. Walls are plastered, painted with tongued and grooved panelling to lower half.

Glass: Chancel window of geometric patterning, NW window to Robert ap Hugh Williams of Plas Gwyn, 1897.

Fittings: Font; octagonal granite, set on single octagonal column, with carved designs in each facing panel. Pulpit; rectangular, 3 bay with central bay advanced, panelled with cusped tracery design to upper part. Pulpit, pews and altar table of pine.

Monuments: Porch contains a C18 carved slate memorial.

Reason for designation

Listed as a good example of a simple C19 rural church, coherently designed in an early Gothic style which is apt for its scale.