History
Church of St. Cattwg in Llanmaes was founded in the 13th century on the site of an earlier temple from the 5th and 6th centuries. The earliest information about it comes from 1254. In 1632, a tower on the west side was added or renewed, and in the 19th century a thorough renovation of the church was carried out.
Architecture
The church originally consisted of a rectangular nave and a narrower and shorter chancel, also erected on a rectangular plan. From the west there was a late medieval or early modern tower built on a square plan, stylistically referring to the Gothic period. The church was illuminated by pointed windows with moulded, also pointed drips mounted on carved consoles in the shape of human heads. In the 15th century, a larger pointed window filled with a three-light tracery was pierced in the eastern wall.
Current state
The body of the medieval church is enlarged today by an early modern porch on the south side and a sacristy in the north. The west tower may also be post-medieval, seventeenth-century. The traceries and some of the jambs and window frames were renovated in the 19th century. Inside, a Norman baptismal font from the 12th century and a rood screen separating the nave from the chancel, the upper part of which dates back to the 15th century, have been preserved. On the northern wall, fragments of a polychrome depicting St. George fighting the dragon are visible.
bibliography:
Salter M., The old parish churches of Gwent, Glamorgan & Gower, Malvern 2002.
Website coflein.gov.uk, St Cattwg’s church, Llanmaes.