82630

 

II  

Designated  

11/03/2004  

11/03/2004  

Church of St Issel  

 

Pembrokeshire  

Merlin's Bridge  

Haverfordwest  

Haroldston  

196426  

214027  

 

In a rural location on the W bank of the Cleddau Wen some 100m SE of Lower Haroldston Farm.  

Religious, Ritual and Funerary  

 

Small church dedicated to St Ishmael or St Issel, medieval origins restored in C19. The medieval church was recorded as being in ruins in the late C16 by George Owen and was presumably rebuilt in the early C17 for the Perrots of Haroldston, owners to 1763. It was said to have had a small gallery recently erected in the Topographical Dictionary of 1844, to have been re-pewed in 1854 and repaired in 1864 for Captain Brady of Fernhill with new pointed chancel window, and some fittings. Restored 1893-4 by E. H. Lingen Barker, G. R. Jones, builder. New windows, doorway, roofs, pews and stalls, floors, and internal plaster.  

Anglican parish church, rubble stone with slate roofs, renewed 2002. Small with nave, W bellcote, S porch, and chancel. Ashlar dressings to C19 narrow lancet windows and doors, with hoodmoulds and carved stops. W end single lancet and plain rubble bellcote with pointed opening and shallow-gabled top. Single bell. S side large rubble porch with pointed arched entry and hoodmould. Porch is plastered within with C19 pointed inner S door and stone seats. Nave has single lancet to right on S and N side is similar but with stone voussoirs of blocked N door, and a single lancet to left. Lower chancel, slightly inset, has plain rectangular chamfered C19 or later S window and traceried C19 2-light pointed E window with cusped lights and cinquefoil. Slight batter to foot of E wall. Stone finials at nave and chancel E ends, nave cross survives, chancel cross broken off.  

Plastered interior with late C19 roofs, boarded three-sided roof with arch-braced collar trusses on corbels to nave, boarded chancel roof. Plastered chancel arch. Fittings: Font with retooled square bowl, presumably C12. Late C19 pitch pine pews Memorials: pedimented plaque to Rev. D. Adams, died 1855.  

Included for its historic interest as a small rural church of ancient origins.