St Nidan's Church, Llanidan

St Nidan's Church, Llanidan
The south side of the church
St Nidan's Church, Llanidan Location in Anglesey
Coordinates: 53°10′56″N 4°15′45″W / 53.182180°N 4.262597°W / 53.182180; -4.262597
OS grid reference	SH 489 674
Location	Brynsiencyn, Anglesey
Country	Wales, United Kingdom
Denomination	Church in Wales
History
Founded	1839–1843
Dedication	Nidan
Architecture
Status	Church
Functional status	Active
Heritage designation	Grade II
Designated	30 January 1968
Architect(s)	John Welch
Style	Gothic revival
Specifications
Materials	Red gritstone dressed with sandstone
Administration
Parish	Newborough with Llanidan with Llangeinwen and Llanfair-yn-y-Cymwd
Deanery	Tindaethwy and Menai
Archdeaconry	Bangor
Diocese	Diocese of Bangor
Province	Province of Wales
Clergy
Priest in charge	E. Roberts

St Nidan's Church, Llanidan is a 19th-century parish church near the village of Brynsiencyn, in Anglesey, north Wales. Built between 1839 and 1843, it replaced the Old Church of St Nidan, Llanidan, which needed significant repair, providing a place of Anglican worship nearer to the village than the old church. Some items were moved here from the old church, including the 13th-century font, two bells from the 14th and 15th century, and a reliquary thought to hold the remains of St Nidan. The tower at the west end has been described as "top heavy" and looking like "a water tower".

The church is still used for worship by the Church in Wales, one of five in a group of parishes in the south of Anglesey. It is a Grade II listed building, a national designation given to "buildings of special interest, which warrant every effort being made to preserve them", in particular because it is regarded as "a distinctive example of pre-archaeological gothic revival work." The 19th-century clergyman and antiquarian Harry Longueville Jones said that it had been built in a "debased barbarous style, showing neither architectural science nor taste".

St Nidan's Church was built between 1839 and 1843, replacing its medieval predecessor. The architect was John Welch, who also designed St Ffinan's Church, Llanffinan, in central Anglesey, which was built in 1841. St Nidan's was originally intended to have a spire on the west tower, but this was not added. The chancel was built in 1882, and a vestry and organ chamber added later. The battlements on the tower were added in 1933, replacing the original gabling. St Nidan's is set within a walled churchyard on the north of the A4080 road, in the south of Anglesey, Wales. The village of Brynsiencyn is about 500 metres (about one-third of a mile) to the south-west, and the old church of St Nidan is about 750 metres (about half a mile) to the south-east.

A new church was needed because the old church needed significant repair and also because the growth of Brynsiencyn meant that more people lived there than in Llanidan itself. Like its predecessor, it is dedicated to Nidan, a 7th-century Welsh saint who was the confessor of the monastery at Penmon, on the eastern tip of Anglesey.