9683

 

II  

Designated  

30/11/1966  

26/04/1999  

Parish Church of St Odoceus  

 

Carmarthenshire  

Laugharne Township  

Carmarthen  

Llandawke  

228271  

211214  

 

Set in a hollow below the Laugharne to Llandawke by road.  

Religious, Ritual and Funerary  

 

Small Gothic church with C13 origins and later C14 remodelling by Sir Guy De Brian, the Lord marcher of Laugharne. Victorian restoration.  

Aisless nave with squat and tapering 2-stage W tower and lower and narrower chancel. Local red sandstone, rubble with quoins and dressed window surrounds. Slate roofs, that to the tower is pyramidal with swept out overhanging eaves, gable parapets and crucifix finial to nave E end. Lancet openings to bell stage (W and S sides) with modern louvring; segmental headed windows below. Stepped out stair vice to N side. The entrance is to S side through pointed arch chamfered doorway with weathered spur bases and boarded doors. To left is a Perp. 2 light square headed window set into a larger blocked opening (see voussoirs). To right is a 2-light Decorated window with Victorian tracery repeating the medieval design of the N side. 2-light chancel windows, square headed to N and pointed to E and S both with renewed tracery but retaining medieval rere arches. Partly overgrown at the time of inspection (January 1988).  

Plain whitewashed interior with open trusses. 4-bay nave with deep segmental headed window splays; the Perp one has window seat. Pointed arch into tower chamber with boarded door opening onto stone vice. The church formerly had a roof loft, (see corbels and opening above semicircular chancel arch). 3 bay chancel; Perp hoodmoulds to S side window; pointed arched recess and piscina beyond, the former was probably for a tomb and has carved head stops and foliated apex. On the N side is a later C14 recumbent effigy probably of Margaret Marlos - tightly folded clothes and a wimple; broken in 3 places as a reference to the legend that she was cut into 3 pieces by robbers - placed here in 1902. At the end of the nave is an Early Christian carved stone slab (formerly doorstep) with Ogham and Roman inscriptions; probably C5/C6. One mid C19 wall tablet by Mainwaring of Carmarthen and two C18 floor monuments.