The Church of St Andrew,

Tredunnock Tredunnock ( cy, Tredynog) is a small village in Monmouthshire, south east Wales, in the United Kingdom. Tredunnock is located four miles (6.4 km) northeast of Caerleon and four miles south of Usk. Geography The River Usk passes close by ...

Monmouthshire Monmouthshire ( cy, Sir Fynwy) is a county in the south-east of Wales. The name derives from the historic county of the same name; the modern county covers the eastern three-fifths of the historic county. The largest town is Abergavenny, with ...

is a parish church with its origins in the 12th or 13th century. A

Grade II* listed building In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern Irel ...

, the church remains an active parish church.

History

Two lancet windows in the

chancel In church architecture, the chancel is the space around the altar, including the choir and the sanctuary (sometimes called the presbytery), at the liturgical east end of a traditional Christian church building. It may terminate in an apse. Ove ...

may be

Norman Norman or Normans may refer to: Ethnic and cultural identity * The Normans, a people partly descended from Norse Vikings who settled in the territory of Normandy in France in the 10th and 11th centuries ** People or things connected with the Norm ...

, giving a foundation in the 12th century but the earliest recorded mention of the church is from the mid-13th century. Most of the current structure dates from the 15th or 16th centuries, including the porch. The font and the top of the tower are 17th century. An extensive restoration of the church took place in the early 20th century. The architect was Arthur Grove and a

Portland stone Portland stone is a limestone from the Tithonian stage of the Jurassic period quarried on the Isle of Portland, Dorset. The quarries are cut in beds of white-grey limestone separated by chert beds. It has been used extensively as a building sto ...

tablet by

Eric Gill Arthur Eric Rowton Gill, (22 February 1882 – 17 November 1940) was an English sculptor, letter cutter, typeface designer, and printmaker. Although the ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'' describes Gill as ″the greatest artist-cra ...

, dated 1910, records the restoration. The Monmouthshire author and artist

Fred Hando Frederick James Hando MBE (23 March 1888 – 17 February 1970) was a Welsh writer, artist and schoolteacher from Newport. He chronicled the history, character and folklore of Monmouthshire, which he also called Gwent, in a series of nearly 8 ...

recorded that the churchyard held the grave of Eleanor Isabella Gill, only child of

Sir John Franklin Sir John Franklin (16 April 1786 – 11 June 1847) was a British Royal Navy officer and Arctic explorer. After serving in wars against Napoleonic France and the United States, he led two expeditions into the Canadian Arctic and through t ...

, the

Arctic The Arctic ( or ) is a polar regions of Earth, polar region located at the northernmost part of Earth. The Arctic consists of the Arctic Ocean, adjacent seas, and parts of Canada (Yukon, Northwest Territories, Nunavut), Danish Realm (Greenla ...

explorer.

Architecture and description

The church is constructed of

Old Red Sandstone The Old Red Sandstone is an assemblage of rocks in the North Atlantic region largely of Devonian age. It extends in the east across Great Britain, Ireland and Norway, and in the west along the northeastern seaboard of North America. It also exte ...

and the style is

Perpendicular In elementary geometry, two geometric objects are perpendicular if they intersect at a right angle (90 degrees or π/2 radians). The condition of perpendicularity may be represented graphically using the ''perpendicular symbol'', ⟂. It can ...

. The interior contains a

Roman Roman or Romans most often refers to: *Rome, the capital city of Italy *Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD *Roman people, the people of ancient Rome *''Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a letter ...

grave-slab, described by the architectural historian John Newman as, "splendidly lettered and well-preserved". It commemorates ''Julius Julianus'', a soldier with the Second Augustan Legion based at

Isca Augusta Isca, variously specified as Isca Augusta or Isca Silurum, was the site of a Roman legionary fortress and settlement or ''vicus'', the remains of which lie beneath parts of the present-day suburban village of Caerleon in the north of the city of ...

, now

Caerleon Caerleon (; cy, Caerllion) is a town and community in Newport, Wales. Situated on the River Usk, it lies northeast of Newport city centre, and southeast of Cwmbran. Caerleon is of archaeological importance, being the site of a notable Roman ...

. The porch contains an early tablet by Eric Gill. In his ''Journeys in Gwent'', published in 1951, Hando recalled that, "For half a millennium the country-folk of Tredunnock have worshipped in their lovely brown church". St Andrew's is a Grade II* listed building, its listing recording it as "a very attractive and well preserved medieval church".

Notes

References

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Tredunnock, Saint Andrew Grade II* listed churches in Monmouthshire History of Monmouthshire Church in Wales church buildings 13th-century church buildings in Wales