The Church of St David,

Llanddewi Rhydderch Llanddewi Rhydderch is a village in Monmouthshire, Wales at OS . It is off the B4233 road, roughly southeast of Abergavenny, lying within the administrative community of Gobion Fawr. History The township of Llanddewi Rhydderch grew around ...

, Monmouthshire,

Wales Wales ( cy, Cymru ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is bordered by England to the east, the Irish Sea to the north and west, the Celtic Sea to the south west and the Bristol Channel to the south. It had a population in ...

is a parish church with its origins in the 12th century. The tower base may date from this time. The fabric of the current building is 14th–15th century in date, with a Victorian restoration by

John Pollard Seddon John Pollard Seddon FRIBA (19 September 1827 – 1 February 1906) was a British architect, working largely on churches. His father was a cabinetmaker, and his brother Thomas Seddon (1821–1856) a landscape painter. Born in London, he was educa ...

in 1862–1863. It remains an active parish church.

History

The origins of the building are

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 ...

, with the base of the tower, and some of its lancet windows appearing to date from this time. The body of the church is later, of the 14th and 15th centuries. J. P. Seddon undertook a sensitive restoration in 1862–63. There have been few alterations since this time and the church remains an active church in the parish of Llanddewi Rhydderch.

Architecture and description

The church is built 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 ...

. The building comprises a

nave The nave () is the central part of a church, stretching from the (normally western) main entrance or rear wall, to the transepts, or in a church without transepts, to the chancel. When a church contains side aisles, as in a basilica-type ...

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. Ov ...

, porch and a tower with a "

pyramid A pyramid (from el, πυραμίς ') is a structure whose outer surfaces are triangular and converge to a single step at the top, making the shape roughly a pyramid in the geometric sense. The base of a pyramid can be trilateral, quadrilat ...

al cap of "typical

Border Borders are usually defined as geographical boundaries, imposed either by features such as oceans and terrain, or by political entities such as governments, sovereign states, federated states, and other subnational entities. Political borders c ...

design". The church is 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 Ir ...

, its listing record describing it as a "medieval church sensitively restored".

Notes

References

St David's Church, Llanddewi Rhydderch architectural plan

* {{Church in Wales template

History of Monmouthshire

John Prichard buildings