St Mary

The church has been serving its community since the 14th century. 

The first church was built about 1080 AD but in the late 1200s it was moved by Edward I, as he needed the land to build his castle and defences. His new church was completed in 1301 and was a simple, single nave church with nave and chancel.

During the peaceful and wealthy Tudor period of the 1400 a tower was added and the church was extended, the roof was raised and the nave floor lowered. In 1400, the church was burnt during Glyndwr’s rebellion and was later restored with the addition of a south porch around 1500. Rhuddlan church again suffered damage during the Civil Wars of the 1600s. In 1637, a vault for the Conwy family was created under the east side of the north nave.

Following his marriage to the heiress of Bodrhyddan in 1812, Dean Shipley, Dean of St. Asaph, began a restoration of the church and introduced a number of monuments from the former Dominican Abbey in Rhuddlan. In 1820, the mausoleum for the Bodrhyddan family was added. In 1868, the vicar and the Squire of Bodrhyddan obtained generous donations to fund a major restoration by Sir Gilbert Scott.

Some of the 13th century church remains. The church is a rubble stone build and has been externally repointed in recent years. It has numerous stained glass windows depicting biblical and local area scenes and there are ancient frescoes depicting liturgical and nonliturgical texts as well as numerous memorial stones hung around the walls of the church. The 17th century wall paintings give biblical quotations in Welsh, which makes them quite unique.