History
The parish church in Coity was built in the 14th century, likely at the initiative of the lords of the nearby castle, the Turberville family. It was rebuilt in the early 16th century, when, among other things, the upper part of the tower was added. A major renovation of the church was carried out in 1860 under the supervision of John Pritchard and John Pollard Seddon.
Architecture
The church was built in the style of English Decorated Gothic, on a cross plan with a four-sided tower at the crossing. The chancel located on the eastern side was built on a rectangular plan, shorter and lower than the nave. A porch was attached to the latter on the south side. All parts of the church (nave, chancel, transept) were covered with slate gable roofs. In the early 16th century, the tower was topped with a parapet mounted on a row of corbels, a decorative and representative battlement, and gargoyles at the corners.
Most of the church’s windows received pointed arches with two-light tracery, except for three single-light windows in the north wall of the nave. The large, five-light western window in the nave stood out as a striking feature, with its interlacing tracery filled with motifs of trefoils, quatrefoils, ogee arches and more complex foliate patterns in the archivolt. Slightly smaller three-light windows were placed in the gable walls of the transept and in the eastern wall of the chancel. Later tower windows were set in quadrangular frames, with two-light windows with semicircular heads on the bell storey. The entire church was quite well lit by medieval standards, boasting numerous large windows, even pierced in the northern wall of the chancel.
Entrances to the church led from two sides, facing the adjacent castle and the road running through the village. A single entrance portal was located in the western wall of the nave, another, mentioned above, in the western part of the southern wall of the nave, and a third one, intended solely for the priests, in the western part of the southern wall of the chancel. All were closed with pointed arches and chamfered: the nave portals had a double chamfer with a dividing groove, and the chancel had a single chamfer. The entrance to the porch was closed with a segmental arch.
Inside the church, both arms of the transept were connected to the chancel by diagonal openings in the thickness of the wall (squints), as well as to the nave by western passages. The pointed arcades at the crossing were broadly chamfered along their entire height, in a manner typical of 14th-century religious architecture in Wales and England. Only the under-tower section of the church was vaulted; the remaining sections were covered with an open roof truss and wooden wagon roofs. The tower entrance was designed in an unusual way, using a staircase suspended on stone corbels in the north wall of the transept. Triple sedillia and a piscina topped with a cinquefoil were set into the chancel wall.
Current state
Due to very good state of preservation and subtle Victorian renovation, which did not significantly interfere with the historic substance of the building (the modern cornice of the nave and transept), the church in Coity is now included in the first, highest and most valuable group of architectural monuments in Wales. It still performs liturgical functions, but it is open to the public. Its most valuable architectural details include the tracery of the nave’s west window, the Gothic entrance portals and the crossing arcades. A 15th-century wooden wagon roof has survive in the nave, while the chancel features a sedilia, a piscina, and a renewed Gothic niche for the Easter sepulchre, dating from around 1500.
bibliography:
Newman J., The buildings of Wales, Glamorgan, London 1995.
Salter M., The old parish churches of Gwent, Glamorgan & Gower, Malvern 2002.
Wooding J., Yates N., A Guide to the churches and chapels of Wales, Cardiff 2011.