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St Mary's Church, Caerau

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NPRN301612
Map ReferenceST17NW
Grid ReferenceST1350075050
Unitary (Local) AuthorityCardiff
Old CountyGlamorgan
CommunityCaerau
Type Of SiteCHURCH
PeriodPost Medieval
Description

The present structure of St Mary's Church is said to date from the thirteenth century. It was restored around 1885 by John Prichard, the Llandaff diocesan architect, who rebuilt the chancel. The church is now wholly ruined and fragmentary. The ruins consist of stone walls, mostly stone rubble with slate roofs. The west tower has battered walls and a blocked stone framed west doorway with a relieving arch above it. It has a small rectangular opening set high in west wall and a similar opening in the east wall. A rectangular slit opening is set lower in the south wall above a further rectangular opening. A small circular belfry opening is set high in the north wall with a stone canopy on corbels above it.

The south wall of the nave has a single light round headed window with sunk spandrels at the west end which are set close to the gabled south porch.The rebuilt front wall of the porch is of coursed stone with a round-headed arch with stone voussoirs. The south-east nave window has two cusped ogee lights in a square frame. The north wall of the nave is a gabled structure, and the vestry, added in the 1920s, is lit by a two-light window of golden stone in its north gable. The north-west nave window comprises a cusped single light in grey stone frame. The chancel is lit by a cusped single light window of golden stone in north wall, by a two-light window in the east gable and by a damaged two-light window with broken dripstone and missing mullions in the south chancel wall. There are traces of wallpaintings in the ruins.

It is set within and Iron Age enclosure (NPRN 94517) and is adjacent to a supposed castle ringwork (NPRN 94518).

Sources include:
Cadw Listings database
Richard Suggett, Painted Temples: Wallpaintings and Rood-screens in Welsh Churches, 1200–1800, (RCAHMW 2021).

RCAHMW 2021