page_title: St Edwen's Church, Llanedwen
section_title: Architecture and fittings
hierarchical_section_title: St Edwen's Church, Llanedwen / Architecture and fittings
caption_attribution_description: English: St. Edwen's church
context_page_description: St Edwen's Church, Llanedwen is a 19th-century parish church near the Menai Strait, in Anglesey, north Wales. The first church was founded here by St. Edwen in 640, but the present structure dates from 1856 and was designed by Henry Kennedy, the architect of the Diocese of Bangor. It contains some memorials from the 17th and 18th centuries and a reading desk that reuses panel work from the 14th and 17th centuries. The 18th-century historian Henry Rowlands was vicar here, and is buried in the churchyard. The church is on land that forms part of the Plas Newydd estate, home of the family of the Marquess of Anglesey since 1812 and owned by the National Trust. Some of the Marquesses of Anglesey, and some of their employees, are also buried in the churchyard.
  The church is used for worship by the Church in Wales, one of seven in a combined parish. A service is held using the Book of Common Prayer each Sunday morning. St Edwen's is one of the few churches in regular use in Wales to be lit entirely by candles.
context_section_description: St Edwen's is built from local red gritstone, formed into square blocks and dressed with sandstone. The roof is made from slate with stone edging. The church, which is in the Late Decorated style, has a tower topped with a broach spire at the north-west corner of the nave, supported by buttresses. The church is entered through a porch with an arched doorway in the lowest of the three stages of the tower. Inside, the woodwork of the roof is exposed; some of the nave timbers might be medieval beams reused in the 1856 rebuilding. The nave and chancel are divided by an arch and by three steps leading up from the nave. The chancel and sanctuary are separated by an altar rail set on top of some wooden panels.
  There is a pair of windows in the west wall decorated with tracery (stonework within the window frame forming a pattern). Scenes from the Bible and geometric patterns are shown in the stained glass, and birds (phoenix and peacock) are depicted at the top of the windows. The glass is dedicated to Rice Robert Hughes, a clergyman who died in 1801. There are three arched windows in the south wall of the nave; the stained glass of the easternmost (dedicated to William Bulkeley Hughes) shows biblical scenes. The easternmost window of the three in the north wall of the nave is dedicated to Thomas Bulkeley Hughes (who died in 1836), his wife and children. The chancel has one window in the east wall, which has three lights (sections of window separated by stone mullions).
  The pulpit has some 19th-century oak panelling and reuses some ornate 17th-century panel work that is decorated with pictures of cherubs, dragons, dogs and lions' heads. The pews are made of pine; the choir stalls also have some carved oak panels that may date from the 17th century. A reading desk from the 19th century reuses material from the 14th and 17th centuries, depicting a lion, a griffin and angels. The church also has an eight-sided sandstone font decorated with a carved cross.
  A survey in 1937 by the Royal Commission on Ancient and Historical Monuments in Wales and Monmouthshire recorded seven 17th and 18th century memorials within the church, the oldest in memory of a Thomas Owen who died in 1646. The tombs in the churchyard include one of a Sidney Griffith (died 1618) and more than 20 others from the 17th and 18th centuries. The survey also noted some oak dog tongs, likely to be from the 19th century, and three 17th-century chairs.
  A survey of church plate within the Bangor diocese in 1906 recorded an engraved chalice dated 1842 and a paten dated 1776–77; both are made from silver and are decorated with foliage. A silver flagon bears an inscription to denote that it was given by William Bulkeley Hughes when the new church was consecrated in 1856. The survey also noted a flagon from about 1700 and a dish, both made of pewter, but said that an 18th-century silver chalice had been lost some time after 1811.  St Edwen's is one of the few churches in regular use in Wales to be lit only by candles.
caption: The west end of the church
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