History
Church of St. Dunwyd was built in the 12th century as a Romanesque building consisting of a nave and a chancel. At the beginning of the 14th century, a tower was built thanks to the foundation of the Stradling family, owners of the nearby castle, and at the end of that century the Lady Chapel was added. In the 15th century, the chancel was rebuilt, and in the next century the nave was rebuilt. In 1878, the church’s nave was renovated and the tower was rebuilt in 1907.
Architecture
The church was situated in a deep valley at the foot of the castle, on its western side, and on the eastern side of the small river Llys Wierydd, which flows into the Bristol Channel in the south. In 13th century it consisted of a rectangular nave and a rectangular but narrower chancel on the eastern side. Both parts were connected by a very narrow rood arcade with a semicircular archivolt mounted on a chamfered cornice and two corner wall columns with simple capitals. At that time, the church windows must have been still small, perhaps slit-like, probably with splays facing the interior. It is not known whether the entrance traditionally functioned than on the southern side of the nave or whether the northern portal has already been built.
In the 14th century, a four-sided tower was attached to the nave on the west side. Initially, it was not buttressed, but was crowned with a parapet, typical for late-medieval South Wales, mounted on corbels and a battlement. A much more rare was to place a similar parapet on corbels along the longer sides of the nave. Inside, the tower opened onto the nave with a double-chamfered arcade. In addition to the tower, at the end of the fourteenth century, a rectangular chapel was added to the north-west side of the chancel. In the 16th century, the northern entrance to the nave was preceded by a porch with two stone benches.
From the 14th century, the church’s facades were divided by large, pointed windows with tracery (eastern wall of the chancel). In the 15th century, large three-light windows in four-sided jambs with tracery topped with cinquefoils were introduced into the architecture of the church (southern wall of the nave) and large two-light pointed windows (southern wall of the chancel). A unique window with a reticulated, three-light tracery in a four-sided jamb was set in the eastern wall of the chapel. On the south side, a small but two-light window provided light on the loft of the rood screen, which separated the nave from the chancel.
Entrances to the church operated in the nave from both the north and south, with the southern portal in the late Middle Ages being a modest, very narrow entrance with a significantly lowered pointed arch. The northern portal was moulded without interruption along its entire height and also closed with a lowered pointed arch, with the opening itself being segmental in shape. A single portal with a pointed arch and a moulded hood suspended on two consoles also led from the south to the chancel. The chapel gained an independent external entrance, accessible through a chamfered Tudor-style portal through the western section of the north wall.
Current state
The church is such an important monument that it has been graded into the highest rank of the three-tier list of Welsh monuments. It owes it to the walls of the nave and chancel arcade dating back to the Romanesque period, numerous Gothic architectural details (portals, windows, arcade under the tower, piscina in the chancel), the fine preserved chapel at the chancel, and associations with the located nearby castle. The wooden lectern also dates from the Middle Ages, although it was moved to the church in the modern period.
bibliography:
Kinross J., Discovering the smallest churches in Wales, Stroud 2007.
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.