A Guide to the Churches and Chapels of Wales

Nigel Yates, Jonathan Wooding

• Publisher: University of Wales Press
• Year: 2011
• Print ISBN: 9780708321188
• eBook ISBN: 9781783164578
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: History of Christianity

A guide to the most important church and chapel buildings in Wales, from the early middle ages onwards. It includes an introduction that provides a clear overview, based on research, of the religious history of Wales and the way that history can be seen in the surviving church buildings throughout the region.

1

Churches and Chapels in Mid Wales

1.ABBEY CWMHIR (St Mary), Church in Wales

Powys (R)

Location: off the A483, 7 miles north of Llandrindod Wells.
Access: generally open.

Cistercian abbey in this remote valley, founded in 1143, which had the largest church in Wales, now almost completely destroyed. The old estate of the Fowlers passed in the mid-nineteenth century to the Phillips family of Manchester, and it was Miss Phillips who paid for the new church built in 1866–7. The architects were John Wilkes Poundley, surveyor of Montgomeryshire, and David Walker of Birkenhead. It has all the character one would expect from them. It is of knobbly brownish stone, in Early French Gothic style. The porch is within a tower which turns broached, and then into an octagonal spirelet, with a ring of colonnettes between. The relief of the Ascension over the door is copied from a tympanum which may have come from the abbey. The east window has a gable over it, interrupting the apsidal chancel roof. Within, the chancel arch, pulpit and font are richly carved. Especially wonderful is the glass in the apse windows, by Heaton, Butler and Bayne, to the design of Robert Turnill Bayne (1866). It is of Pre-Raphaelite intensity, with rich browns, greens and purples. The scene of Christ’s Agony in the Garden is particularly fine. The glass in the west window is by Clayton and Bell. Poundley and Walker also designed the Hall, built in 1867, gabled and bargeboarded, with a striped slate roof. The diarist Francis Kilvert much admired it.

2.ABEREDW (St Cewydd), Church in Wales

Powys (R)

Location: in village, on the west side of the B4567, 3 miles south-east of Builth Wells.
Access: key holder advertised on notice board.

A large, late medieval church, with a west tower and a handsome north porch. Both nave and chancel roofs are medieval, that of the chancel being ceiled in a style more familiar in south-west England. Nave and chancel are separated by a screen, the lower part of which dates from the fifteenth century and the upper part from the seventeenth century. The wrought iron altar rails date from the early nineteenth century. An unusual survival is two flutes and a pitch pipe that belonged to the musicians who accompanied the church choir before the installation of the organ.

NY

3.BEULAH (Eglwys Oen Duw – Church of the Lamb of God), Church in Wales

Powys (R)

Location: off the A483, 1 mile north of Beulah.
Access: generally open.

In such a remote location, one is surprised to find this strikingly elaborate Victorian church, in blue and grey stone, with a tall Germanic fleche. It was built by the Thomas family of Llwyn Madoc. The architect was John Norton. The exterior is in plain Early English, but the interior is colourful, with polychrome brick, tiles and a mosaic reredos. There is good Clayton and Bell glass in the grouped lancets of east and west windows, and two sanctuary windows are by Burlison and Grylls (c.1877). The pulpit is of wrought iron, the choir stalls are carved and there are brass candelabra. Note the brass sconces in the form of water lilies, complete with frogs. There are three fonts, one by Norton, and two early medieval ones from demolished churches.

PH

4.BLEDDFA (St Mary Magdalene), Church in Wales

Powys (R)

Location: on main road A488 to Llandrindod Wells, 5 miles south-west of Knighton.
Access: generally open.

The church comprises a single-cell nave and chancel of c.1400 with an eighteenth-century south porch and a simple wooden belfry at the west end of the nave, which was partitioned off in c.1800 to serve as a schoolroom. The interior is covered by a fifteenth-century roof. The pulpit and altar rails date from the seventeenth century. The church was attractively restored in 1977 by G. G. Pace, according to a scheme which allowed the furnishings to be moveable, so that the church could be used for concerts and exhibitions.

NY

5.BRECON/ABERHONDDU (Cathedral of St John the Evangelist), Church in Wales

Powys (B)

Location: on the west side of town above the River Honddu near the ruins of the former castle, now mostly incorporated into the Castle Hotel.
Access: open daily 9 a.m.–5.30 p.m.

This large cruciform former priory church, dating from the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, was made the cathedral of the new diocese of Swansea and Brecon at its creation in 1923. An extensive restoration of the interior had been carried out by George Gilbert Scott between 1861 and 1875, and a further restoration, designed to make the building work as a cathedral, was carried out by W. D. Caröe in 1927–37. The very attractive interior is dominated by an east window of five lancets. There is a particularly handsome twelfth-century font and an even more handsome thirteenth-century sedilia and triple piscina. Most of the present furnishings are by either Scott or Caröe, those of the latter being the more successful. They include the magnificent new reredos to the high altar, designed to replicate a reredos of c.1500, filled with statuary. The chapel of St Keyne is separated from the nave by an early sixteenth-century parclose screen, to which have been attached bosses from the former choir ceiling. The former north transeptal chapels were in 1923 adapted to serve as the regimental chapel of the South Wales Borderers. In the south transept is a seventeenth-century cupboard incorporating carved panels of c.1500 said to have come from Neath Abbey. Parts of a fifteenth-century screen have also been incorporated into the pulpit.

The overall atmosphere of the cathedral is one of great spaciousness and liturgical formality. Substantial remains of the former priory buildings also remain incorporated into the largely nineteenth-century deanery and canonry houses. The former tithe barn has been converted to serve as a shop, exhibition area and restaurant, designed to meet the needs of visitors to the cathedral.

NY

6.CAPEL-Y-FFIN (St Mary), Church in Wales

Powys (B)

Location: on a side road to Llanthony, 6 miles south of Hay-on-Wye.
Access: generally open.

An extremely modest chapel-of-ease built in 1762 and with a south porch added in 1817. The furnishings are largely contemporary and comprise a simple pulpit of 1780, domestic settles instead of pews, altar rails and a gallery along the north wall reached by a staircase at the west end. There is a crude medieval font of uncertain date. The interior was insensitively carpeted, covering the stone flags, in 1991. Nearby is the former Anglican monastery (now a private house) designed by Charles Buckeridge for Father Ignatius of Llanthony in the 1870s and later occupied by the artists Eric Gill and David Jones.

NY

7.CARDIGAN/ABERTEIFI (Our Lady of the Taper), Roman Catholic

Cere.

Location: in the northern suburbs of Cardigan, on the main Aberystwyth road.
Access: generally open.

The church, with its attached free-standing shrine housing a miraculous statue of Our Lady, is an impressive piece of modern architecture designed by Weightman and Bullen of Liverpool in 1970 to provide a worthy setting for the new liturgy authorised by the Second Vatican Council. The furnishings and stained glass are of good quality with a spacious sanctuary being located under a funnel-like tower. The complex includes an attached presbytery and is one of very few examples of modern church architecture in rural Wales.

NY

8.CARNO (St John the Baptist), Church in Wales

Powys (M)

Location: in village, on the A470, midway between Newtown and Machynlleth.
Access: key available from the Post Office.

Opposite the Aleppo Merchant inn, on the road from Newtown to Machynlleth, is the characterful church of 1863 by J. W. Poundley and David Walker. It replaced a medieval church of which bits survive. It is a rich example of the architects’ work, and it is tragic that the funny wooden belfry, painted maroon, has been removed from the amazing little tower, which, like the rest of the church, is of lumpy grey stone with red and yellow dressings. The windows have striking plate tracery. The division between nave and chancel is marked on the outside by frilly ironwork, and on the inside by a big timber arch resting on pairs of colonnettes.

PH

9.CASCOB (St Michael), Church in Wales

Powys (R)

Location: by itself on a side road off the B4357, 4 miles west of Presteigne.
Access: generally open.

A small, largely fourteenth-century church, with a west tower and timber belfry, typical of Powys. The church underwent a model restoration in 1878 in which the fourteenth-century octagonal font, the fifteenth-century roof and the early sixteenth-century screen, with the panelled parapet of the rood loft still in situ, were retained. There is a memorial to a former long-serving incumbent, William Jenkins Rees, the distinguished Celtic scholar, who died in 1855.

NY

10.CREGRINA (St David), Church in Wales

Powys (R)

Location: on a side road off the A481, 4 miles east of Builth Wells.
Access: generally open.

The church comprises a thirteenth-century nave and a wider fifteenth-century chancel, set at an angle to it, both of which were sensitively restored in 1903. Nave and chancel are separated by a simple sixteenth-century screen. The crude font is probably of the twelfth century. The chancel was repaired by G. G. P...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of Illustrations
• Notes on Contributors
• Guide to Entries
• Introduction
• 1 Churches and Chapels in Mid Wales
• 2 Churches and Chapels in North-East Wales
• 3 Churches and Chapels in North-West Wales
• 4 Churches and Chapels in South Wales
• 5 Churches and Chapels in South-East Wales
• 6 Churches and Chapels in South-West Wales
• Plates
• Guide to Further Reading
• Glossary
• List of Churches and Chapels