Church of St Tysilio, Bryneglwys, Denbighshire

History

A small hilltop parish church of the C15 to which a late C16 family chapel has been added. The dedication is to St Tysilio, a C6/7 saint. Before the Dissolution it belonged to the Abbey of Valle Crucis, then to Sir William Pickering and subsequently to the Wynnstay family. In the C19 the living was in the patronage of the Bishop of St Asaph. The list of incumbents commences in 1504; they were perpetual curates until 1870 and vicars thereafter.
The style of the church is Perpendicular. It is thought to have been restored in c1570, followed by the addition of the Elizabethan Yale Chapel which overlies the Yale family vault. Of the early fittings the pulpit remains and a dated panel (1615) built into the choirstalls. The bell was recast in 1735. When described by Glynne in 1853 the whole was whitewashed and there was a large south porch. There was then no font, use being made of a stone stoup in the nave wall. Until 1875 there was a west gallery.
The church was restored in 1875 for the vicar, the Rev. Richard Owen, by Arthur Baker, architect, of Kensington. The cost was about £800, probably excluding improvements in the Yale Chapel which were at the expense of the squire. Most of the windows date from this restoration. The present south porch and a north-west vestry (with adjacent stoke-hole) were added and the bell turret renewed. The porch included a side door to the Yale Chapel, formed with the loss of an old window. An intended west window to the nave was not formed. In the interior a celure was added over the chancel and one of the two posts of the open side to the Yale Chapel was replaced. The font was the gift of the Yale family. The pews and choirstalls were new, the pews open-backed as the old pews had been and the choirstalls in Jacobean style. The east window was donated in memory of Rev & Mrs J P Jones-Parry. The Tagwystl slab was brought in from the churchyard.
In 1878 the steps and base of a preaching cross were still in existence in the churchyard, but were removed shortly afterwards. In 1926 electric light was installed.

Exterior

A small church the core of which consists of a nave without external differentiation of the chancel, in local limestone rubble masonry with dressed quoins. The Yale chapel to the south and the C19 porch and north vestry are in a slightly more regular similar masonry. The coped gables, finial crosses and the bell turret are all of the C19. Slate roofs with tile ridges. The porch, also C19, has a front gable with scalloped barges and a large timber finial.
The east windows are original, in Perpendicular style, both of three lights. That to the chancel is equilateral pointed in a plain surround without labels. It has simple Perpendicular tracery with trefoils to the main lights and to the top lights. The east window to the Yale chapel has trefoiled lights under a flat head. The eastern south window to the Yale chapel is also original, with two trefoiled lights under a flat head; the western window in the same location is a C19 copy. The other windows of the church are all of the C19 restoration. In the west wall of the Yale chapel a tall lancet; a restored two-light plain window left of the porch; in the north elevation a three light plain flat-headed window to the west, and two large flat headed windows with two and three trefoil-headed lights respectively with tracery above. Plain three-light window in the vestry. The main door and the vestry door have plain equilateral arches, that from the porch to the Yale chapel is moulded.

Interior

Small porch with doors to the nave and to the Yale chapel; quarry-tiled floor. The door to the nave installed in the C19 restorations has centre hinges which allowed it to open partially before the west gallery was removed.
The nave is compact with steps to the chancel and to the sanctuary. Red quarry tiles in the nave, encaustic patterned tiles in the chancel. The roof is in four bays with collar-beam trusses and V struts, plus a C19 segmental profile celure over the chancel in two bays with moulded cross ribs. Plain pews with open backs but prominent carved fleurs de lys on the pew-ends. The pulpit, to the left, is C17 and the choir stalls are C19 Jacobean style but incorporating a carved date panel 1615. The pulpit is octagonal, panelled with raised carving on the upper panels and a stone base. Carved oak altar rails with oak standards, crocketted elliptical heads to the openings. Tudor-arched door to vestry.
At right is the open side of the Yale chapel, with two massive timber posts each carrying four brackets, one of the posts being original. These carry a moulded head beam with brattishing; the chancel celure and the last bay of the nave roof are extended down to it by panelling. The opening is curtained. The Yale chapel has a more decorative roof with cusping to the collar beams and V struts, and panels between the rafters.
The font, beside the nave door, was the gift of William Corbet Yale and Isabella in 1875, in memory of an infant son; it is Gothic with four cherubs in high relief and a Welsh inscription. Wall memorials include a simple Baroque memorial to W V Pughe [1758] at left of the nave and Yale family memorials in their chapel: to the left of the east window a memorial with a carved mourning figure above, to the Rev. J Yale; to the right a circular bronze Gothic memorial to Lieut. Col. W Parry Yale. Also in the Yale chapel is the C14 coffin slab commemorating Tagwystyl, daughter of Ieuaf ap Mareded, inscribed in Lombardic letters.
At the left of the chancel are the Royal Arms of George III, put up in 1810 at the expense of Watkin Thelwall, whose other benefactions are recorded on a board beside the nave entrance. A board at the right of the nave records the benefactions of Eliza Yale, 1882, and another to the right of the door records the grant of £20 to the restoration by the ICBS. The main east window is in memory of the Rev. J P Jones Parry and Margaret [1876], showing faith, hope and charity. The south window of the Yale chapel shows the Little Children and the Good Shepherd, in memory of J E I Yale [1896].

Reasons for Listing

A late mediaeval church with an important family chapel, all well restored in the late C19.

External Links

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