St Andrew's Church, Bayvil, is a redundant church standing in an isolated position in the hamlet of Bayvil, some to the northeast of

Nevern Nevern ( cy, Nanhyfer) is both a parish and a community in Pembrokeshire, Wales. The community includes the settlements of Felindre Farchog, Monington, Moylgrove and Bayvil. The small village lies in the Nevern valley near the Preseli Hills of t ...

Pembrokeshire Pembrokeshire ( ; cy, Sir Benfro ) is a Local government in Wales#Principal areas, county in the South West Wales, south-west of Wales. It is bordered by Carmarthenshire to the east, Ceredigion to the northeast, and the rest by sea. The count ...

, Wales. It has been designated by

Cadw (, a Welsh verbal noun meaning "keeping/preserving") is the historic environment service of the Welsh Government and part of the Tourism and Culture group. works to protect the historic buildings and structures, the landscapes and heritage s ...

as a Grade II* listed building, and is under the care of the Friends of Friendless Churches. It is listed Grade II* because it is "a scarce rural example of an unaltered

Anglican Anglicanism is a Western Christian tradition that has developed from the practices, liturgy, and identity of the Church of England following the English Reformation, in the context of the Protestant Reformation in Europe. It is one of th ...

church of its date".

History

St Andrew's is thought to be an early 19th-century rebuild of a medieval church. It was designed by a local architect, David Evans of Eglwyswrw, the first Welsh-based architect to have been trained in Wales, rather than in England. Since it was declared redundant, the church has been maintained by the charity, the Friends of Friendless Churches, who hold a 999-year lease with effect from 7 October 1983. Since acquiring the church, the charity has reinstated the

Gothic Gothic or Gothics may refer to: People and languages *Goths or Gothic people, the ethnonym of a group of East Germanic tribes **Gothic language, an extinct East Germanic language spoken by the Goths **Crimean Gothic, the Gothic language spoken b ...

-style

sash window A sash window or hung sash window is made of one or more movable panels, or "sashes". The individual sashes are traditionally paned window (architecture), paned windows, but can now contain an individual sheet (or sheets, in the case of double gla ...

s, and renewed the rendering on the western face to deal with the effects of damp.

Architecture

The church is constructed in stone rubble with a

slate Slate is a fine-grained, foliated, homogeneous metamorphic rock derived from an original shale-type sedimentary rock composed of clay or volcanic ash through low-grade regional metamorphism. It is the finest grained foliated metamorphic rock. ...

roof and a bellcote in blue lias stone. It is rectangular in plan and consists of a single chamber. The windows are twelve-pane

sashes Sashes Island is an island in the River Thames in England at Cookham Lock near Cookham, Berkshire. It is now open farmland, but has Roman and Anglo-Saxon connections. The island is located between Hedsor Water and the present navigation chan ...

with

tracery in the top panes; there are two such windows on the south side, and one on each of the east and north sides. At the west end is a flat-arched doorway. Internally it is "remarkable" as it is a "little altered" early 19th-century church interior. Its contents include plastered walls, slate floors, box pews, a three-decker

pulpit A pulpit is a raised stand for preachers in a Christian church. The origin of the word is the Latin ''pulpitum'' (platform or staging). The traditional pulpit is raised well above the surrounding floor for audibility and visibility, access ...

, and simple communion rails and altar. At the east end is a mid 19th-century armorial plaque in

Bath stone Bath Stone is an oolitic limestone comprising granular fragments of calcium carbonate. Originally obtained from the Combe Down and Bathampton Down Mines under Combe Down, Somerset, England. Its honey colouring gives the World Heritage City of ...

under a memorial. The tall pulpit is

panelled Panelling (or paneling in the U.S.) is a millwork wall covering constructed from rigid or semi-rigid components. These are traditionally interlocking wood, but could be plastic or other materials. Panelling was developed in antiquity to make roo ...

and painted, with a

sounding board A sounding board, also known as a tester and abat-voix is a structure placed above and sometimes also behind a pulpit or other speaking platform that helps to project the sound of the speaker. It is usually made of wood. The structure may be spe ...

almost touching the ceiling. The church also contains a simple 12th-century square

font In metal typesetting, a font is a particular size, weight and style of a typeface. Each font is a matched set of type, with a piece (a "sort") for each glyph. A typeface consists of a range of such fonts that shared an overall design. In mod ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Bayvil, St David Grade II* listed churches in Pembrokeshire Former churches in Wales Churches preserved by the Friends of Friendless Churches