St Mary the Virgin, Capel y Ffin
St Mary the Virgin, Capel y Ffin
St Mary’s is a Grade II chapel of ease in the Vale of Ewyas at Capel-y-ffin, Powys, in the Diocese of Swansea and Brecon. The Welsh name means chapel of the boundary, close to the historic divide between the dioceses of St Davids and Llandaff.
- Location
- Capel y Ffin, Powys
- Country
- Wales
- County
- Powys
- City / town
- Capel y Ffin
- Address
- Capel y Ffin, Powys, NP7 7NP
- Postcode
- NP7 7NP
- Built
- 1762; porch 1817; replacing a 15th-century chapel
- Denomination
- Church in Wales
- Dedication
- Mary
- Diocese
- Swansea and Brecon
- Parish
- Capel-y-ffin
- Grade
- II
- Style
- Simple Georgian chapel
- Materials
- Stone rubble with stone-slate roof; weatherboarded and louvred west bellcote
- Grid reference
- SO 254 315
- Opening hours
- Open to visitors.
- Access
- Level access to the main areas. Accessible toilets nearby
Overview
Cadw (list 6614, designated 28 September 1961) records a small church said to date from 1762, with no features older than the eighteenth century other than a medieval font, and a porch added in 1817. The building is stone rubble under a stone-slate roof, with a weatherboarded and louvred bellcote over the west end. Windows are square and round-arched. Inside, a three-bay roof is ceiled above low tie-beams; a late-eighteenth-century oak gallery stands on chamfered posts. The octagonal stone font is probably medieval. The pulpit is dated 1780 and a settle 1783. A churchyard cross shaft survives, and ancient yews stand in the yard.
Coflein and the Clwyd-Powys Archaeological Trust give the grid as SO 25480 31530. Wikipedia notes an interior of only about 26 by 13 feet (8 by 4 metres), among the smallest churches in Wales. Francis Kilvert likened it to an owl. It originally served Llanigon and now has its own ecclesiastical parish.