5516

 

II  

Designated  

30/01/1968  

17/07/2002  

Church of St Cawdraf  

 

Isle of Anglesey  

Llangoed  

 

Llangoed  

261180  

380570  

 

Set back from the W side of a country road which leads N off the B5109 N of Llangoed; E of the small hamlet of Glan-yr-afon.  

Religious, Ritual and Funerary  

 

The church is listed in the Norwich Taxation of 1254, but the only part of the church which suggests the use of this site at that time is a reset C12 cross slab, set outside the E door of the N transept. The oldest part of the present building is the early C17 N transept, dated 1612. The main body of the church is predominantly late C19, built by Henry Kennedy, architect of Bangor, in 1881; the church may have been built on the foundations of the earlier church and the E window was reset. In 1910 the N vestry was added.  

Small rural church, cruciform plan with transepts and N vestry and S porch off the W end of the nave. The oldest part of the present building is the early C17 N transept which, together with the early C20 N vestry, is built of rubble masonry with freestone dressings; the rest of the church is built of snecked masonry with freestone and blue brick dressings and diagonal buttresses. Modern slate roof has stone copings with cross gable finials and shouldered W bellcote of ashlar masonry; N vestry has stone copings on a parapet gable and a tall square stack with shaped capping to the SE corner. The E and N walls of the early C17 N transept each have an original window of 3 round-headed lights in a square frame with a straight chamfered label; a stone above the N window of the transept bears the date and initials: 1612 R : H : W : / S.. To the N of the E window is a doorway with chamfered jambs with moulded stops and a segmental head with a heavy keystone which bears initials (now overgrown with vegetation and indecipherable - possibly M I / E). Forming the step to the doorway is a C12 gravestone; an incised cross on a base of 2 steps. The N window of the vestry is an early C20 copy of the N transept windows; the W window to the heating chamber below a paired window of square openings, now blocked. The openings in the late C19 nave, chancel and S transept are dressed with blue brick except for the E window, which is a cusped tracery window of 3 trefoil-headed lights in a pointed arched framed with hoodmould. The 2 bay nave and S transept have paired lancet windows; a single lancet window in the W gable has a reset stone tablet over which bears the initials and date: I H S / 1613, above that a datestone of 1881 has been set. The porch has a pointed arched doorway with hollow chamfered jambs.  

The C19 nave is of 3 roof bays with single bay chancel and S transept, 2-bay N transept. The roof has exposed closely spaced rafters on paired purlins and chamfered arch braced collared trusses with crown posts, springing from squared corbels. The fittings are mainly late C19, contemporary with the rebuilding of the church. The early C17 pulpit is much restored, originally 4 sides forming a hexagon on plan; each side tapers down to the base in 3 tiers of panels. The posts are carved with floral and leaf patterns and the rails with geometric designs; the base is moulded. The panels contain geometric and some conventional floral designs; in one of the upper panels is an inscription which reads: IN THE / NAME OF / IESUS . AMEN and in another the initials and date E I : 1622. The cresting is modern (C19). The chancel is raised by a single step and the sanctuary by a further step. The chancel rail is moulded, on shaped balusters and square newels; the reredos is panelled with a moulded rail. There are opposing arched recesses in the chancel walls formed with re-used C17 window heads. The E window depicts St David flanked by Joshua and Gideon, the bronze plaque on the N wall of the chancel reads that the window was erected in memory of those lost in the First World War. The N transept window depicts St Catherine, St Luke and St Hugh and is a memorial to Hugh Robert, youngest son of Lt Robert Hughes RN of Plas yn Llangoed Esq and to Catherine Rutherford Greig his wife; erected in 1907. The church houses some mid C18 memorial tablets: to Margaret (Lhoyd) wife of Francis Wyn, curate, d1750 and to Margaret daughter of Roger Hughes d1765, and his son William d1774. There is also a C18 tablet bearing a shield of arms, of Iarddur (a stag's head cabossed) on the E wall of the S transept. There are also a number of C19 marble memorials to the Hughes family of Plas yn Llangoed. The C14 font has a plain octagonal bowl on a modern shaped pedestal and there is a plain stoup, possibly C15, reset in the porch.  

Listed as a small rural church, a coherent essay in simple gothic by a well-known architect incorporating significant remains of its predecessor - notably the C17 transept and a fine C17 pulpit.