84271

 

II  

Designated  

23/03/2005  

23/03/2005  

Church of Saint Mary and Saint Cynidr  

 

Powys  

Yscir  

Brecon  

Aberyscir  

300035  

229671  

 

At Aberyscir S of the Trallong to Cradoc road some 50m NE of Aberyscir Court.  

Religious, Ritual and Funerary  

 

Anglican parish church mostly of 1860 by Charles Buckeridge, incorporating some earlier stonework including C15 N door. The site is recorded from the C12. Recorded by Theophilus Jones c. 1800 as having an earth floor and being 'a miserable little building with a shed at one end'. The present church is a small High Victorian work with distinctive tall W bellcote carried on a central pier on the W front.  

Parish church, rubble stone single chamber with steep slate roof and large W bellcote. N porch. N vestry added in 1884. Roof overhangs at eaves and has coped E and W gables, the E gable with cross finial. W end has projecting centre pier carrying bellcote: battered base, tooled stone quoins, centre cusped lancet and bellcote with string course, two grey stone pointed cusped openings with three column shafts, blank trefoil roundel above, and steep gable. S side has three two-light windows with simple cusped heads to lights, then pointed chancel door and single similar chancel light. E end wall has big grey stone traceried 3-light pointed window with hoodmould, the lights cusped and with big sexfoil roundel in head. Stone voussoirs over hoodmould. Chancel N has similar S light to left of big projecting 1884 vestry . Vestry has ashlar quoins and dressings, half-hipped roof with gablet, and very tall E chimney with quoins to left (wall steps back on this side only), tapered shaft and medieval-style gabled cap. N end has off-centre broad plate traceried window of 3 short lancets under a roundel pierced by three glazed roundels, all in ashlar with ashlar voussoirs. Ventilation loop below, left of centre. W side has basement door with shouldered head and ashlar relieving arch. Corner to nave canted-in to leave free one of the two nave N 2-light windows. Porch to right with red plain tiles to steep roof, plinth, tooled quoins, coped gable with cross and chamfered pointed entry with hoodmould. Stone seats and flagged floor within. Medieval N doorway has bar-stopped chamfered pointed surround. C19 board door with big iron hinges. On W wall is reset medieval stoup with three-sided front, curved in below.  

Plastered walls, stripped at W end. Boarded 6-sided nave roof, the division to chancel marked by a moulded pointed timber arch on corbels and chancel with transverse timber ribs to pointed boarded roof. Small fireplace in W wall, pointed cusped opening. Pointed reveals to windows. Flagstones to centre of nave. Chancel marked by step and very low chamfered ashlar coping each side, the right side linking to pulpit screen. Chancel has opposed N and S doors, segmental-pointed, the N door up 4 steps to 1884 vestry. Then sanctuary step with oak rails. Chancel floors probably tiled, covered in carpet. One step to altar. Sill course under E window. Fittings: mostly well-designed High Victorian fittings in simplified Gothic by Buckeridge of 1860. Tooled stone round font with deep-splayed underside on round shaft, copy of that in Llandyfaelog Fach, with cover of 1959. Pulpit on massive stone base, squat octagonal pier with stone steps up, and oak 3-sided panelled front with blind Gothic detail. Behind pulpit is a panelled timber screen, the top 3 with pierced roundels. Simple altar rails on posts with zig-zag notching to upper halves, continued on underside of rail which has cusped angle braces. Oak altar table with similar notching and brackets. Pine pews with shaped bench-ends. Early C20 ornate lectern of bookrest type. Memorials: at W end massive C15 floor slab, leaning on wall, with foliated cross and eroded inscription said to be to Richard ap Jenkyn and his wife Cecilia. Worn C17 incised slab in floor by pulpit said to be to 'Mary descended from Traharne Madock Lord Cwmod ..' (read differently by T. Jones in 1800).  

Included as a small High Victorian Gothic church of definite architectural quality and character, with surviving medieval N door.