St Celynin, Llangelynnin
St Celynin, Llangelynnin
St Celynin's Old Church stands in a rectangular churchyard set into steep ground above the railway and sea, west of the A493 in the hamlet of Llangelynnin, Gwynedd. Cadw lists the building at Grade I as a substantially unaltered late-medieval church of great simplicity. It belongs to the Diocese of Bangor and the Bro Ystumanner Ministry Area.
- Location
- Llangelynnin, Gwynedd
- Country
- Wales
- County
- Gwynedd
- City / town
- Llangelynnin
- Address
- Llangelynnin, Gwynedd, LL37 2QL
- Postcode
- LL37 2QL
- Built
- Late C15 or early C16; restored 1917
- Architect
- Harold Hughes (restoration 1917)
- Denomination
- Church in Wales
- Dedication
- Celynin
- Diocese
- Bangor
- Parish
- Bro Ystumanner
- Grade
- I
- Style
- Late medieval vernacular
- Materials
- Local coursed stone, roughly dressed, with slate roof
- Grid reference
- SH 571 072
- Opening hours
- Open in daylight hours.
- Access
- Level access to the main areas
Overview
The first documented reference is the 1254 Norwich Taxation. Cadw dates the present fabric to the late fifteenth or early sixteenth century. Dendrochronology gives a felling range of 1502-30 for the roof trusses and 1497-1533 for reused panels in the chancel screen. The church is a continuous nave and chancel of notably wide plan, with a south porch incorporating a bellcote, built of local coursed stone under a slate roof. The west wall has a battered plinth. The porch, possibly seventeenth-century, houses a bell dated 1842 with an inscription commemorating a new church in Llangelynnin (the 1842 church at Llwyngwril).
Harold Hughes restored the church in 1917. The sixteenth-century five-bay roof has king- and queen-post trusses. Post-Reformation wall paintings include a Memento Mori uncovered in 2003 and Commandment and psalm fragments. A virtually complete set of 1823 benches records the names and addresses of their occupants, from vicar and gentry to servants. The late medieval font is a simple octagonal bowl. Coflein notes seventeenth-century wall paintings including a skeletal figure.