4350

 

II  

Designated  

19/10/1971  

31/03/1999  

Church of St John the Baptist  

 

Gwynedd  

Llanystumdwy  

Criccieth  

Llanystumdwy  

247413  

338602  

 

The parish church stands conspicuously in its graveyard on the N side of the Afon Dwyfor in the centre of Llanystuymdwy.  

Religious, Ritual and Funerary  

 

The parish church stands on an early site. It was rebuilt as 'a handsomer edifice neatly fitted up' in 1819, then dedicated to a C6 missionary Sant Tydecho, but was rebuilt on a larger scale in 1862 by Henry Kennedy, architect to the diocese of Bangor, in a Gothic style. It was further inproved internally in 1890 and rededicated in 1892 to St Ieuan gan Alltud Eifion. The church was known in the C18 for is patronage of bards, including Evan Evans, 'Ieuan Fardd' (1731-1788) the eminent poet and scholar, who was curate here from 1769-1770.  

Built of roughly coursed squared microgranite, with gritstone dressings, and slate roofs. The building consists of a nave with a south porch, a short narrower presbytery, and large north and south transepts. Double buttresses at the W end rising from a wide battered base, rise to a gabled bellcote with three openings for bells. The S porch has an external arch of 2 chamfered orders and coped gable with a cusped terminal stone. Nave buttresses, the lower offset rising from ground level. 1- and 2-light windows with cusped geometric tracery, varied at the W end, with a higher 2-light window. On the N side a low W end window, partially blocked. 2-light windows to the transepts and a large 3-light window with elaborate tracery at the E end. All gables are coped. Attached to the porch are slate headstones of Richard Williams, Cefn-y-maen d.1747, Rebeccah Hughes d.1860, Jane Morris d.1860, Catherine Ellis and children d.1805 (in Latin), and Catherine Ellis of Gwynfryn, d.1736, buried 1803. In the churchyard is a monument of 1781 to William Williams of the East India Company.  

Wide nave with slender trussed collar rafter roof. The truss at the junction of nave with transepts is arch-braced from low stone corbels, and this has a similar arch-braced collar truss at the start of each transept, together defining the crossing. Walls plastered and painted. Quarry tile floor, encaustic tiles in the crossing and mosaic in the sanctuary. Fittings: stone reredos of 5 bays on short trilobed red marble columns, each arch framing raised symbols of the faith. Pulpit, a carved limestone octagon raised over 4 steps, cinquefoil arches on similar short marble columns, and the panels filled with chequerwork, this and the reredos commemorating Samuel Owen Priestley, d.1872, and wife. Font, a plain octagonal stone bowl with an oak cover. Lectern, of oak, carved openwork between side posts. The altar rail is also of oak and arcaded. The organ, which originally had a barrel organ mechanism, was a gift to the church in 1867. Glass: E Window, c1862, in memory of Mary Nanney, d.1849, and sister Anne Morgan; E nave windows, Annunciation and the Good Shepherd, good later C19 glass; S Transept, a Baptism of Christ, 1886, by Mayrick? of London; W window, SS Peter and Paul, for Ellis Anwyl Owen, rector 1837-46. Monuments: Nave, N side from W: (a) Gothic marble commemorative tablet on slate, by R D Towyn, to John Williams, surgeon, of Talarfor, d.1875; (b) Slate gravestone of Owen Gruffydd, d.1730, 'the most honorable of all', one of the last bards in the bardic tradition who wrote political and religious cywyddau, and Christmas carols; (c) Gothic white marble tablet, the outer edge carved with flowers and fruits, by Hall of Derby, to Samuel Owen Priestly of Trefan and Tyddynmadoc coch, d.1872; (d) Small slate tablet to Lt Col Godfrey Drage of Cae Terfyn, d.1853, 'a gallant soldier'; (e) Marble tablet with cornice and urn over, against slate, to John Wynne Hughes of Trefan, d.1795; Nave, S wall, (f) Marble tablet, the cornice supporting a draped figure leaning on an upturned sword and holding a balance, to Henrietta Ellis Nanney of Gwynfryn, d.1815, and commemorating husband, David Ellis Nanney, barrister, d.1819; and (g) Polished limestone plaque to Dorothea Pughe-Jones of Ynysgain, d.1955. Two unfixed boards inscribed with the Commandments and the Creed.  

Included as a good example of a completely rebuilt C19 church in the full Gothic revival tradition of the mid century.