The parish church of St Gwyndaf lies at the western edge of the village of Dinas, on the north side of the approach road in a rectangular churchyard (originally oval) used as a cemetery. It is a nineteenth-century church built on the site of a medieval predecessor. The present church was built in 1847 as a cruciform Neo-Norman church with apse, to designs of George Alexander. It is constructed of regularly coursed and dressed rubblestone blocks with tooled ashlar dressings, and slate roofs with slate-coped verges to nave and Celtic crosses to transepts and east end of nave. The church consists of nave, transepts, south porch, double bellcote, lean-to north vestry to west wall of north transept, and short chancel with semi-circular apse with conical roof; lit through round-headed windows. The interior is spacious with plain arches to the chancel and transepts. The nave roof is of six bays, arch-braced trusses on stone corbels with V-struts from collars to principal rafters, and double-purlins and exposed rafters.
Various items from the old church survive including a seventeenth or eighteenth century chest in the north transept, with strap-hinged curved lid made from two planks, three original large locks and two additional small ones; two small copper collection shovels with wooden handles in the chancel, the backs inscribed "Rhodd Lhwyd Foxwist A.B./ O Rhyddallt/ i Eglwys Llanwnda/ Hydref 16, 1772"; a mahogany chair (c.1800); and an early eighteenth-century communion table in the vestry, of oak with shaped brackets from heavy turned legs supporting framing and with a later top. There are a number of monuments fixed to the walls which date from 1612 to 1914.
Sources:
RCAHMW, Caernarvonshire Inventory II (Central) (1960), No. 1327.
Cadw Listing description.
R.Haslam, J.Orbach & Adam Voelcker, Buildings of Wales: Gwynedd (2009), p.461.

RCAHMW, 8 March 2016


John Wiles 23/10/2006