4252

 

II  

Designated  

19/10/1971  

11/02/1998  

Church of St Beuno  

 

Gwynedd  

Botwnnog  

Pwllheli  

Botwnnog  

226263  

331544  

 

Next to the school at the N end of Botwnnog village on the E side of the minor road, in a walled and gated burial ground.  

Religious, Ritual and Funerary  

 

A watercolour dated 3 September 1774 by Moses Griffiths of Trygarn, now in the National Library of Wales, depicts Botwnnog school and beside it the old church with a bellcote at W end. This church was rebuilt in 1835, and again in 1885 in a late C19 Gothic style to designs by architect William Owen.  

Rubble stone with slate roof and gable coping. Squat W tower with spire, nave and chancel roofed separately. Tower has tiny vestigial buttresses to base on either side, then rises in three diminishing stages to base of belfry. Each stage has battered sides with raking offsets, the middle stage being slightly taller. The octagonal belfry is in ashlar, rising from a square platform with half-pyramids at corners, like a broach spire; four pointed arch openings to bell chamber. Porch to N of nave has steeply pitched gabled roof with stone cross at apex; gable coping and moulded kneelers; and pointed-arched doorway with sandstone voussoirs and rectangular datestone marked '1885' above. Interior has flagged floor, roof ceiled at collar with ashlar pieces to sides, 1-light opening to right and big boarded door with ornate cast-iron strap hinges and stirrup drop handle. N elevation: to left of porch, nave has two 2-light trefoil headed windows with two traceried trefoils and a quatrefoil above. The junction with the chancel is buttressed, and the chancel, which is a later build, has a single trefoil headed lancet window. Both nave and chancel roofs have gable coping and stone cross above ridge at E end; chancel roof is lower. S elevation has, again, plain buttress at E end of nave. Late C20 lean-to vestry to W has random rubble walls and three 1-light rectangular windows with stone architraves. Nave wall to right has a two-light trefoil headed window with a traceried multifoil. (matching window to l is hidden by the vestry). E end has a three light trefoil-headed window with seven multifoil lights to tracery.  

Nave roof of 5 bays; deep arch-braced collar trusses supported on stone corbels, with a simple V-strut above the collar; rafters have ashlar pieces. 3-bay chancel roof similar, but with vertical posts between arch-brace and collar. Big pointed Gothic chancel arch with inner rib. Nave floor boarded, chancel in encaustic tile. Panel-backed pews with shaped ends. Pine altar rail is moulded with pointed arched decoration between turned balusters. Pulpit is raised on octagonal wooden base, hexagonal drum, the panels simply decorated with blind tracery consisting of trefoil headed arches with quarter round pillars on either side. C 19 font: octagonal bowl supported on circular moulded shaft with square unmoulded base. Stained glass: N nave by Jones and Willis 'Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God' and E window crucifixion scene in memory of A. Jones Williams of Gelliwig.  

A late-C19 Gothic Revival church, prominently sited in Botwnnog village.