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Latitude: 51.5238 / 51°31'25"N
Longitude: -3.7215 / 3°43'17"W
OS Eastings: 280662
OS Northings: 181947
OS Grid: SS806819
Mapcode National: GBR H6.H8LT
Mapcode Global: VH5H8.FYXR
Plus Code: 9C3RG7FH+G9
Entry Name: Church of St Mary Magdalen, Pyle with Kenfig.
Listing Date: 26 July 1963
Last Amended: 2 January 1998
Grade: II*
Source: Cadw
Source ID: 11248
Building Class: Religious, Ritual and Funerary
Location: The church stands in a raised curvilinear churchyard on a high prominence above the former site of Kenfig, by the junction of the side road into Maudlam village.
County: Bridgend
Town: Cynffig
Community: Cornelly (Corneli)
Community: Cynffig
Locality: Maudlam
Built-Up Area: Pyle
Traditional County: Glamorgan
The church is of C13 origin, reputed to have been built between 1245 and 1265, and restored in 1878 by John Pritchard at the cost of £500, and the chancel rebuilt in 1891-4 by Waller & Son of Gloucester. It was a chapelry to the first St James' church Kenfig, which is now under the sand, and which is recorded in a charter of 1149-1183 as having been built c.1150. The tower may be an addition to a single cell building of c.1300
Nave and chancel with a C19 N vestry, a square unbuttressed west tower with a W porch attached. The nave has 3 pairs of 3-light trefoil-headed windows on the S side only. The chancel has 3 trefoil-headed lights of C19 date set in the S extension under a continuation of the roof. Three cusped E lancets under an encompassing arch. Short W tower with a stair extension on the S, small rectangular openings and a crenellated parapet on corbels, incorporating small gables for the pitched tower roof. The gabled W porch has a hollow-chamfered stone W doorcase, probably C15, and oak door, and a blocked S door. The C19 N door to the vestry has a shouldered head.
Wide round-headed arch from the tower to the nave. Nave walls plastered, and 4-bay open timber roof, the four robust trusses being medieval or C17, with arch-braced collars carrying two tiers of purlins, the feet of the principals rising from within the walls. Chancel is raised by 2 steps, through a C19 arch, the inner arch order on corbels. Two-bay late C19 roof of a similar pattern to that of the nave. Rear-arch over E lancets. Encaustic tile floor. The organ chamber opens under an arch on the N, with the vestry to the E. A small light from the tower stair into the W of the nave, and a rectangular opening over the entrance door from porch to the tower.
Font: Norman, a handsome limestone tub decorated with 5 rows of scallops, and a rope moulding around the lip, said to have been brought from the early Church of St James, when it was overwhelmed.
Glass: E window of c.1920 by C Powell as a war memorial, and Nave S window by Frank Roper of Penarth.
Bell of 1644.
Monuments: 13 memorial slabs set into the wall plaster, all simply but elegantly lettered, ranging in date from 1696 to 1793, but one tablet of c.1820.
Nave, N wall: (a) Anne Thomas, Edward Thomas c.1896; (b) Segmental head with cut roses, Rees Thomas, Alice, d 1793, and 3 children; (c) Fielded tablet, with putto in shaped gable, to Elizabeth Yorwerth Pinho, d.1742; (d) Round-headed slab, to Margaret Yorwerth, d. 1781. S wall: (e) David Edmond d.1765 and Elizabeth Beynon d.1784; (f) Tall fielded panel set in ogee moulded frame, to Elisabeth Williams of Sker, d.1722. In chancel: (g) Richard Lowther d.1698, his arms in a semicircular top; (h) Evan Lyddon, portreeve, d.1727; (i) Tablet to John Morgan, clerk, d.1820; (j) Round top stone, Evan Waters, d.1694, and Anne; (k) Shaped top, Charles Aylward, d.1728; (l) Richard Waters of Cornely, d.1698; and behind the organ, (m) Richard .... (obscured). In the porch two large slabs of polished stone, believed to be originally altar slabs.
Included at Grade II* as a building of substantially medieval fabric with an unusual early W porch, and a remarkable font.
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