History
Church of St. Dubricius was built around the 13th/14th centuries. In 1611-1638 its parish priest was William Wroth, the minister of the Anglican Church, who was expelled from it and founded the first independent church in Wales in Llanvaches. In the mid-nineteenth century, the temple was seriously transformed during the Victorian renovation.
Architecture
The church was built of pink sandstone, regularly worked, laid in layers and reinforced with large ashlars, especially in the tower walls, where blocks from Roman buildings could be reused. In the Middle Ages, the church consisted of a rectangular nave, a slightly narrower, rectangular chancel, a tower on the western side and a 16th-century porch at the southern wall of the nave. The tower was built on a square plan. Originally, it was probably much higher than the ridge of the nave roof, but in the upper parts it was rebuilt later and probably lowered slightly. On the south-eastern side, it had a four-sided communication turret, which may have originally been the highest part of the tower and, like in other buildings of this type, had guarding and observation functions. The windows of the church were small, topped with trefoils, sometimes grouped in twos, as in the southern wall of the chancel.
Current state
The church avoided major transformations in the early modern period, but despite this, the original top of the tower was changed, some windows were replaced, and the chancel arcade was rebuilt in the 19th century. The southern entrance to the church is also early modern, and the original portal has been bricked up. Inside the church, the 14th-century baptismal font has been preserved.
bibliography:
Salter M., The old parish churches of Gwent, Glamorgan & Gower, Malvern 2002.
Website britishlistedbuildings.co.uk, Parish Church of St Dubritius A Grade II Listed Building in Llanvaches, Newport.