History
The church of St. Cadoc in Llancarfan was built in the late 12th or early 13th century. It was one of several in Wales dedicated to St. Cadoc, but it is believed that the saint served as abbot at Llancarfan. Between 1284 and 1307, the church was rebuilt at the initiative of Gloucester Abbey, which held the patronage at the time. According to records, the chancel was rebuilt, though a tower was likely also built than. Further work was carried out later in the 14th century, when the south aisle was built. In the 15th century, the church’s interior was decorated with wall frescoes, a porch was added, and windows were converted to late Gothic style. One of the windows in the chancel was said to have featured a magnificent stained glass window, but in the 17th century, a villager named Whitton Bush destroyed the glass by repeatedly striking it and shouting “down with the whore of Babylon!”. In the years 1887-1888 the church was renovated and the western tower was rebuilt.
Architecture
The church was built at the bottom of a valley, on the west side of a stream flowing through it. Originally, it likely had a form typical of many late Romanesque and early Gothic rural churches, consisting of a rectangular nave and a narrower, shorter chancel with a straight eastern closure. From the turn of the 13th and 14th centuries, a quadrangular, somewhat squat tower stood on the western side, topped by a parapet mounted on corbels projecting from the wall face and crenellated. Subsequently, in the 14th century, a southern aisle was built, almost as long as the older nave and chancel, creating a straight elevation to the east and a slight step in the wall to the west. A porch was built on the south side in front of the entrance portal in the 15th century.
Initially, the church must have been lit by small windows of late Romanesque or early Gothic forms, probably strongly splayed towards the interior, perhaps with lancet heads. Since the 14th century, the building’s walls already featured pointed, two-light windows with Y-shaped tracery, forming single, pointed, large leaves and four smaller leaves with gentler petals on the sides, and quatrefoil tracery at the top. In addition, larger, three-light windows were also created, one each in the west and south, and one in the eastern end of the nave and chancel. In the 15th century, two-light windows with cinquefoil tracery were inserted to the northern façade, as well as a magnificent five-light window with a complex arrangement of tracery in a quadrangular frame, set very unusually in the northern wall of the chancel. Additional pairs of small windows were placed under the eaves, where they could illuminate the lofts of the rood screens. The tower walls lacked larger windows. Originally it was illuminated by small lancets, giving it a defensive character.
The church entrance likely was initially located in the western part of the southern wall of the nave. After the aisle was built, the 13th-century portal was moved to its southern wall, though it is possible that some architectural changes were made at that time. It now consisted of a pointed archivolt moulded with rollers, unevenly set on probably older imposts with schematic scalloped capitals. The second portal, contemporary with the aisle, was set in the eastern part of the southern wall. Narrow, with a pointed arch and chamfer, it was intended for the priest. Furthermore, the church could be entered through the porch under the tower and by the wide western portal with a pointed arch. The entrance to the 15th-century porch was also pointed, moulded and framed by a roll-shaped hood supported by two bas-relief corbels.
Inside the church, nave, aisle and the chancel were topped with timber wagon roofs in the 15th century. The walls were decorated with late medieval frescoes depicting the Seven Sins, the Death of Gallantus, and St. George and the Dragon. A 15th-century rood screen separated the western part of the southern aisle from the eastern part. Originally, the rood screen also separated the nave from the chancel, with stairs to the loft set into the northern wall. These stairs were built in the late Middle Ages, in the still late Romanesque wall of the nave. The rood screen was located in front of the chancel arcade from the early 13th century, which had a pointed archivolt, but lacked the moulding and rested on simple imposts.
The south aisle opened onto the nave with four pointed arcades supported by polygonal pillars, while the chancel had three arcades. A single pointed arcade supported by corbels opened the porch below the tower onto the nave. The pointed and chamfered arcades between the aisle and nave were set on quadrangular abacuses, one of which was decorated with bas-relief masks serving as corbels, and another with scalloped motifs. The three eastern bays of the chancel arcades, perhaps slightly later than the western ones, were distinguished by double-chamfered archivolts and unusual capitals with concave sides.
Current state
The church in Llancarfan is today one of the most valuable parish buildings in the Glamorgan region, listed with the highest class on a three-point scale defining Welsh monuments. This is due to the lack of major early modern transformations, the original late-medieval layout and many original architectural details (window traceries, portals, carved masks). A valuable monuments are also wall frescoes, considered to be one of the best preserved in the whole of Great Britain. Among them, the image of Saint George and the dragon is the most complete painting on this subject in Wales.
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.