St Teilo, Llandeilo

St Teilo's is a Grade II parish church set in a large raised churchyard on Rhosmaen Street, Llandeilo, Carmarthenshire. It is the historic church of Llandeilo Fawr in the Church in Wales Diocese of St Davids, on a site associated with St Teilo from the sixth century.

Overview

Cadw records a medieval church on a Celtic site, largely rebuilt in Decorated style in 1848-51 by G. G. Scott after a competition (drawings survive in the church), and restored in 1905 by David Jenkins of Llandeilo. The late medieval west tower remains from a double-nave church; Coflein notes a vaulted undercroft and dates the four-stage tower around 1600. The present plan is a six-bay double nave with south chancel, twin-gabled south transept, vestry, north porch and defensive west tower.

The tower is squared coursed rubble with dressed quoins, a splayed base, Perpendicular bell openings and nineteenth-century crenellated battlements. Scott's body is snecked rubble with ashlar dressings and steep slate roofs. Inside are octagonal arcade piers, a fifteenth-century octagonal font from Llandyfeisant, two tenth-century cross-heads from the earlier church, and monuments to the Rice family of Newton House, including work by J. Bacon. The circular churchyard and a culverted spring mark a much older Christian enclosure. The Llandeilo Gospels (now the St Chad Gospels at Lichfield) were held here in the early medieval period.

Further Information

• Cadw listed building 11097
• Llandeilo Fawr parish
• Coflein: St Teilo's Church, Llandeilo