The district of Greenhill was originally part of the mission territory of St David’s church, in the centre of Swansea. Fr Charles Kavanagh, builder of St David’s, started working in the Greenhill district and his successor Fr Lewis raised money for the building of a school, convent (finished in 1863 and occupied from the beginning by the Ursuline sisters) and a simple church, which was opened in 1866 (on the site of the present parish/cathedral hall).

In 1873 the Swansea mission was given over to the Benedictine Order and St Joseph’s became a separate mission, with Canon W. J. Richards OSB as priest. Canon Richards was later somewhat dismissive of his predecessor’s efforts, recalling that ‘I found Greenhill a new working men’s district, still in the process of formation, on whose bleak and bare hillside, where roads and streets had yet to be made, had been dumped down by Fr Lewis, Catholic buildings consisting of church, convent and schools. The church was plain […] with rubble walls without sanctuary or sacristy and with nothing distinctive of a church but the cross that crowned it’. Canon Richards raised money for the erection of a large and handsome new church, designed by Peter Paul Pugin of the London firm of Pugin & Pugin, who were at that time also working for the Benedictines at Belmont Abbey (qv). The church was begun in 1886 and was opened by Bishop Hedley on 25 November 1888. It was built on the site of a former pond and therefore required deep foundations. A presbytery was also built, linked to the sanctuary of the church by a short cloister. The organ for the new church was given by Lord Petre, while the Stations of the Cross were made in Antwerp.

On 7 December 1919 the church was consecrated, and a Celtic memorial cross to the memory of parishioners who died in the First World War was unveiled, the gift of the Sisters of St Mary’s Convent, Greenhill. The baptistery was also completed about this time.

The Benedictines served the parish until 1932, when it passed to the Diocese of Cardiff. When in 1978 diocesan boundaries were revised and the Diocese of Wrexham created, St Joseph’s became the cathedral church of the Diocese of Menevia. The sanctuary was reordered, with the high altar remodelled and brought forward and the cathedra placed centrally where the high altar had previously stood. Additional seating for clergy and servers was also installed.

In April 2022 Pope Francis announced that the Archdiocese of Cardiff and the Diocese of Menevia were to be united, St Joseph’s becoming Co-Cathedral.

Description

The cathedral is not orientated; the liturgical east end is to the south. All directions in the following description are liturgical. The exterior is fully described in the list entry (below), and repetition is unnecessary. One correction may be noted: the roofs appear to be covered in artificial slate, not modern pantiles as stated in the list entry.

The interior is not described in the list entry. This is tall, with a six-bay nave arcade of pointed moulded arches on short thick octagonal piers of red Dumfries sandstone, set on tall moulded bases of Bath stone and crowned by plain moulded Bath stone capitals with a deep necking. The western bay has a full-width timber organ gallery, its underside enclosed by a timber screen in 1899. The principal trusses of the scissor-braced open timber roof are carried down the clerestory walls first as timber posts then as stone wall shafts resting on carved stone corbels of music-playing angels in the spandrels of the arcades. The lean-to aisle roofs are carried on diagonal stone arches. Both aisles have windows set in segment-headed reveals and have patterned mosaic dados. Two bays of the south aisle have doors to confessionals. The floor is of woodblock and the walls are plastered.

The tall stilted sanctuary arch has jamb shafts resting on canopied niches with figures of the Virgin Mary and St Joseph. The sanctuary ceiling is richly painted, all that visibly remains of the elaborate painted scheme of 1907 by Hardman & Pippet. Reordering in the 1980s following the raising of the building to cathedral status, and to meet post-Vatican II liturgical requirements, involved the separation of the high altar from its reredos, with the former remodelled and brought forward to serve as a forward altar, and the latter, which has reticulated tracery and statues of St Michael and St Gabriel under canopies, retained in situ. The tabernacle was removed to a new Blessed Sacrament Chapel, formed out of the former Lady Chapel, while the cathedra was placed centrally below the reredos. The side chapels retain their alabaster rails, altars and reredoses. Other fittings of note include the stone and marble pulpit of 1907 and the small octagonal stone font, moved from the original southwest baptistery to the southeast side chapel. Most of the windows are clear glazed but the sanctuary east and side windows have late-nineteenth century figurative stained glass said to be by Hardman of Birmingham, and in the south aisle is a three-light window of 1988 depicting the Last Supper, by Catrin Jones.

Text amended by AHP 20.07.2025

List descriptions

Cathedral

Reference Number: 11571
Grade: II  
Date of Designation: 30/03/1987  
Date of Amendment: 30/03/1987  
Name of Property: R C Church of St Joseph
Unitary Authority: Swansea  
Community: Castle  
Town: Swansea  
Locality: Greenhill  
Easting: 265568  
Northing: 194428  
Location: Tall church building overlooking valley with St John’s Church, Hafod, opposite, long flank to street.  

History: 1886-8. Designed by Pugin and Pugin, architects of London (cost £10,000).  

Exterior: Plan form of apsidal chancel flanked by side chapels, 7-bay aisled nave with W chapel and baptistry, NW polygonal tower with spire, twin W porches. Decorated style. Coursed bull-nosed masonry. Bath stone dressings, red Dumfries stone to nave piers and responds. Modern pantile roof. W front with finial to gable parapet, small arched opening over 4-light Geometric traceried window, flanking buttresses, lancets to NW turret with openwork timber-bellcote and spirelet; twin pointed doorways with traceried tympana to W porches, figure of St Joseph in tabernacle. Buttressed clerestory with 3-light traceried windows and to outer gable of SW baptistry; triple lancets to buttressed aisles; openwork finials to angles of E nave gable. E end with lower traceried clerestory and 3 light E window under corbelled gable with finial. Wheel window and headstops to overlapping chapel at SE side. Enclosed churchyard with tall Celtic Cross War Memorial (1919) at W end. Presbytery joined to E end.  

Presbytery

Reference Number: 11572
Grade: II  
Date of Designation: 30/03/1987  
Date of Amendment: 30/03/1987  
Name of Property: Presbytery at St Joseph’s R.C. Church  
Unitary Authority: Swansea  
Community: Castle  
Easting: 265577  
Northing: 194403  
Location: Attached by cloister/corridor to E of St Joseph’s Church.  

History: 1886-8. Designed by Pugin and Pugin, architects of London, as part of original scheme.  

Exterior: 2 storey asymmetrical building, forward to right. Rubble facings, Bath stone dressings, quoins, hipped slate roof with end stacks. 2 and 3 light mullioned windows, arched head to ground floor left. 2 storey porch in angle. Attached range with linking corridor runs left to join church, timber work bargeboards, second doorway etc. Walled forecourt.  

Reason for designation: Group value.

The post +Swansea – Co-Cathedral Church of St Joseph appeared first on Taking Stock.

In 1936 the Carmelite Order was invited from Ireland to establish a foundation at Aberystwyth. Under Fr Malachy Lynch the mission was expanded, with a new church at Lampeter (1940) and Mass centres at Penparcau (1952), Aberaeron (1957) and Borth (1969, now closed). The building acquired at Aberaeron had been built in 1864 as the Salem Wesleyan Methodist Chapel. It had been closed in about 1922 and converted to residential use. It was acquired by the Carmelites in 1957 for about £800 and re-converted for use as a place of worship by Joe Banham, a Belfast craftsman. The re-converted building was opened and dedicated by Bishop Petit of Menevia in May 1958. A lean-to structure at the rear became a sacristy and kitchen. In 1992 a larger transeptal addition was made alongside it to increase the accommodation in the church. In 2004 the Carmelites departed, since when the church has been served from Aberystwyth by secular priests.

Description

The church is not orientated; the liturgical east end faces northeast. The building is slightly set back from the street line behind a small forecourt enclosed by dwarf walls.

The original chapel is small and rectangular on plan and is set parallel to the street. The external walls are faced with pebbledash and the pitched roof is covered with slate. The main front to the street is painted and has a stucco plinth and end strips. In the centre is a projecting gabled porch with a six-over-three small-paned sash window to the front and a side door. The porch is flanked on each side by single rectangular nine-over-three sash window. The side walls are not readily visible because of adjoining buildings. At the rear a substantial extension includes a gabled central cross-wing with a round-headed window opening in the end wall, flanked by two smaller modern windows.

The interior of the original chapel is now a carpeted plain space seated with chairs and with plastered walls, a flat plaster ceiling and no architectural enrichment. The altar is set on a shallow wooden platform in front of the northeast end wall which carries a carved wooden crucifix. A rectangular opening with a broad wooden surround in the rear (northwest) wall links the original church space to the 1992 extension, which has a flat boarded ceiling. The central window in the end wall of this later space incorporates a re-set panel of stained glass depicting Our Lady of Ireland, which had been given to the church by the Irish stained glass artist Richard King (1907-74), a pupil of Harry Clarke. Other furnishings include small painted Stations of the Cross.

The post Aberaeron – Holy Cross appeared first on Taking Stock.

The first evidence of Catholic revival in Aberystwyth was in 1845, when Bishop Brown, Vicar Apostolic of the Western District, advanced proposals to convert a playhouse in Thespian Street into a church. Nothing came of this, and no substantial progress was made until 1867, when Bishop Bernard Collier OSB chose the town as his place of retirement. Realising the need for a place of worship for the small but growing Catholic population (both resident and visitors), he established an oratory and priest’s house at Queen Square House, and Fr Charles Limpens, a Belgian émigré, was appointed resident priest.

In 1872 Fr William Williams, a Catholic convert, took over the mission and set about building a permanent church. Bishop Collier had already acquired the site in Queens Road from Sir Pryse Pryse of Gogerddan, and in 1873 an appeal for funds was launched. George Jones & Sons, architects of Aberystwyth, drew up plans for a church and attached presbytery, a contract was let to James Williams (builder), and construction began in March 1874. The estimated cost was £1500, but this proved optimistic, and plans for a 110ft tower and a school on the site had to be abandoned. The presbytery cost a further £500. An anonymous benefactor contributed £300 to meet the cost of the carved stone high altar, which was made by Messrs Boulton of Cheltenham. On 19 August 1875 the new church was solemnly opened by Cardinal Manning of Westminster.

In 1936 the Carmelite Order was invited from Ireland to establish a foundation at Aberystwyth. Led by the charismatic figure Fr Malachy Lynch (later responsible for the development of the shrine at Aylesford, Kent), the Carmelites had ambitious plans to expand the mission, and in 1940 a new church was built in Lampeter (qv). In 1952 Lampeter became an independent parish, but in the same year the Carmelites established a new Mass centre at Penparcau, followed by others at Aberaeron (1958, qv) and Borth (1969, now closed), the latter two being converted Nonconformist chapels.

In 1962 a greenfield site on the edge of a housing estate at Penparcau was acquired by Bishop Petit of Menevia, financed in part by a legacy from the Truscott family of Aberystwyth. In 1968 plans were prepared by Thomas Price of F. R. Bates, Son & Price and the new church opened on 16 August 1970. The main contractor was T. Alun Evans of Rhydyfelin. The dedication honoured the Welsh Martyrs of the Reformation period, amongst the Forty Martyrs of England and Wales canonised by Pope Paul VI in 1970.

In 2004 the Carmelites departed, and since then the parish has been provided with secular priests. In 2008 Welsh Martyrs was closed and its future was for several years uncertain, while plans for future church provision in Aberystwyth were under review. In 2012 a decision was taken by the Bishop of Menevia to close St Winefride’s, while proposals for the demolition of Welsh Martyrs and its replacement with a new church at Penparcau were advanced by the diocese, then withdrawn. At the end of 2017 a £360,000 programme of renovation of the Penparcau church was begun, with a view to the church becoming the focus of Catholic parish life in Aberystwyth. The renovated church reopened in October 2018.

Description

The church was built in 1969-70 from designs by Thomas Price of F.R. Bates, Son & Price, and is a modern design built to reflect the new liturgical requirements emerging from the Second Vatican Council. It has a quadrant or fan-shaped plan, with the seating arranged in semi-circular fashion around the altar, to encourage active participation in the liturgy. The building is constructed of brick with a render facing and is externally articulated by a pylon and loggia at the entrance, and by angled projections around the quadrant sides, evoking flying buttresses. Inside, the walls were originally faced with pale brick, with square-section metal uprights close to the outer perimeter wall, providing an ambulatory. The uprights support steel roof trusses and a metal roof.

In the recent restoration, the external render was repaired or replaced and the windows were renewed. These are clear glazed and have metal frames. Internally, the original bare-faced brickwork of the walls has been painted and the boarded floor renewed, though the original curved benches remain, as does the original altar with a small openwork metal crucifix suspended on the plain reredos. At present (March 2019) the metal Stations of the Cross are not in the church; their place is taken by photocopies.

The post Aberystwyth – Welsh Martyrs appeared first on Taking Stock.

In 1910 the Carmarthen Passionists undertook the spiritual care of Catholics in the mining town of Ammanford. In 1914 they bought a meeting hall in Margaret Street, built only six years previously by a nonconformist group. Ammanford became a separate parish in 1926, with a resident priest from 1928. Many of the early parishioners were Irish or Italian. A hall was built behind the church in 1932 and there was also a small presbytery. After the arrival of the Rev. Frank Maher SJ (ret’d) in 1995 funds were raised for the building of a new church. The old church, hall and presbytery were demolished and a new church built on the same site from designs by Nigel Arnold, architect of Penarth, opening in 2004. A house across road was purchased as a presbytery, but has since been sold.

Description

The church is not orientated; the liturgical east end faces towards the north. All directions in the following description are liturgical. The church is rectangular on plan with a tower or upstand at the west end next the street. The walls are a mixture of yellow brick and render; the roof slopes are covered in metal. The tower is faced with render and has a narrow curving face towards the street and a roofline sloping boldly down at the rear. The tower is set into the main body of the church, which has a roof with two monopitch slopes, forming a clerestory on the north side. To the left of the tower is an open entrance porch. The side and rear walls of the main building are enclosed by other properties.

Internally, an entrance lobby in the base of the tower opens into the body of the church. This is a wide single space with laminated timber roof trusses resting on short steel posts against the side walls. The walls are plain plastered, the floor covered in carpet. The north side wall has four large rectangular window openings filled with clear glass blocks. The clerestory in the north roof slope is also clear glazed. The south wall has a series of small vertical slit windows filled with stained glass. There is no structural sanctuary, simply a raised platform and a recess in the blind east wall with a crucifix. The furnishings were mostly made for the present church. The altar, ambo and statues on the east wall were supplied by Ormsby of Scarisbrick. The nave is seated with chairs not benches. Several of the figurative stained glass windows in the south wall are by Gareth Morgan (St John the Baptist and St Francis, 2005; Our Lady and Child, 2010). The striking window of the Annunciation in the west wall is by Elizabeth Edmundson of Glasslight Studios, Abertawe and dates from 1985, so presumably made for the previous church. The carved and painted Stations of the Cross are older, and probably came from the previous building.

The post Ammanford – Our Lady of the Rosary appeared first on Taking Stock.

After the Reformation a stable population of about a hundred Catholics managed to survive in this part of Wales, but until the end of the eighteenth century they were served only by visiting priests. In 1788 Bishop Charles Walmesley OSB, Vicar Apostolic of the Western District, appointed a Franciscan, Fr John Williams, as resident priest. He raised sufficient funds to buy the old Three Cocks Inn as a chapel and a residence for the priest, and was also able to let out part of the building to a pastry cook to provide an income. In 1826 there were two priests in the town, George Gildart and Michael Havard, a member of a prominent Brecon family, many of whom farmed in the Senni Valley. He was followed by Lewis Havard, who served as priest in Brecon until 1850. By this time there were about 200 regular Catholic worshippers and a new and larger place of worship was required. Local fundraising was supplemented by a large donation from a Mr Howard of Corby. A design for a new building on the site of the old chapel was commissioned from the Catholic architect Charles Hansom of Bristol and a new church and presbytery were erected to his designs and opened on 6 August 1851. The church seated 150 and cost £1000. The Silurian reported on 9 August:

The very handsome little church, erected on the site of the old Catholic chapel in Wheat Street, was opened with the usual solemnities on Wednesday last. The design of the exterior is very beautiful, and from some points of view, forms a very ornamental feature in the general ensemble of the town, but, unfortunately, it is deprived of much of its architectural effect by the close proximity of other buildings. The congregation was not very large, though it included several highly respectable families of the Catholic persuasion from neighbouring counties, as well as many Protestants from the town and country.

In 1899 the Spanish soprano Adelina Patti, who lived at Craig-y-Nos Castle on the edge of the Black Mountain, married her third husband in the church.  

Adjoining the main front of the church in Wheat Street is a double-fronted stuccoed house of early nineteenth century character (the list entry says it is later nineteenth century), which now serves as the parish hall. In 1919 this building was converted to become the Electrotheatre Cinema with seating for 400, and continued in this use until 1925. It was later acquired for church use.

In 2010 the church and presbytery were renovated under the supervision of Fr Ross Patterson and the interior of the church was repainted and re-carpeted.

Description

See list entries for church, presbytery (including boundary wall) and St Mary’s Hall (front wing), which were revised and expanded in May 2024, following Taking Stock:

Church: Listed Buildings – Full Report – HeritageBill Cadw Assets – Reports (cadwpublic-api.azurewebsites.net)

Presbytery: Listed Buildings – Full Report – HeritageBill Cadw Assets – Reports (cadwpublic-api.azurewebsites.net)

Hall: Listed Buildings – Full Report – HeritageBill Cadw Assets – Reports (cadwpublic-api.azurewebsites.net)

The post Brecon – St Michael appeared first on Taking Stock.

A church hall was built on the site in 1951, and was initially a chapel-of-ease to St Joseph’s church at Neath. A separate parish was formed in 1958 and the third parish priest, the Rev. Edmund Mullins, oversaw the building of a new church and presbytery adjoining the existing hall. This was to an adventurous modern design by Thomas Price of F. R. Bates, Son & Price, expressing the spirit of renewal at the time of the Second Vatican Council (1962-66), and with some notable furnishings by John Petts (1914-91). The contractors were Messrs Knox & Wells, and the church was blessed and officially opened by the Archbishop of Cardiff on 10 May 1966. The awkward elevated site was not large enough to accommodate the new church and presbytery as separate buildings, so the presbytery was designed at first floor level projecting into the roof of the existing hall and providing a link between the hall and the east end of the church.

Description

The church is a simple flat-roofed box-like shape on a rectangular plan. The main building has a steel frame clad externally with ribbed self-finished metal cladding, with a large rectangular window at the west end, strip windows at the base of both side walls and rectangular windows on both sides at the east end. On the west, north and south sides of the main building is a single-storey flat-roofed ambulatory with walls of 11 inch cavity brickwork, with vertical slit windows on the south side. The brickwork is now painted red but early views appear to show it a light colour, like that of the upper cladding. At the northwest angle of the building is a modernist openwork campanile made of reinforced concrete, housing one bell. The same early view shows that the campanile was also originally painted a light colour. The east end of the church is combined with the two storey presbytery, which is set against rising ground at the rear of the site. The presbytery is clad in ship-lap weatherboarding.

The main entrance at the southwest corner leads to a narthex extending the full width of the west front, which originally had a baptistery at the western end. The narthex is divided from the main body of the church by a screen with stained glass panels representing The Passion, by John Petts. The body of the church has plain plastered walls and a flat ceiling whose panels outline the shape of a large cross. At the head of the cross, above the forward altar, is a hanging cylindrical corona, terminating with a 12ft diameter dome light. The sanctuary is also lit from either side by large windows high in the wall with stained glass in abstract patterns, original to the building. At the west end of the south side is a small side chapel dedicated to St David, which is divided from the main body of the church by an abstract openwork screen of the same character as the external campanile. The chapel contains a fine expressionist figure of St David by John Petts. The west end wall above the narthex has a large concrete and stained glass window with a striking figure of Our Lady, also by Petts.

The original wooden bench seating in the body of the church survives but there has been some reordering at the east end. The rails have been removed, a dais formed for a new altar in a forward position (with carved frontal of the Last Supper) and the tapering cylindrical stone font moved from the original western baptistery to the sanctuary.

The post Briton Ferry – Our Lady of the Assumption appeared first on Taking Stock.

In the early 1900s there was no Catholic priest or church in this part of central Wales. A succession of visiting priests provided occasional ministry until the arrival of Fr Patrick Kane, a Jesuit, who took up residence in Llandrindod Wells in 1907. Mass was offered in Builth Wells from 1936, initially in a room in the Crown Hotel which was made into a chapel. In about 1944 the chapel and mission were taken over by Fr (Canon) J. B. O’Connell, a distinguished liturgical scholar with an active interest in the arrangement of churches. In 1956, together with his fellow writer and liturgist Fr James Crighton of Pershore and Archbishop Grimshaw of Birmingham, O’Connell attended the International Congress on the Pastoral Liturgy at Assisi, where Pope Pius XII was the keynote speaker. In the early 1960s he attended the Second Vatican Council as a ‘peritus’ or expert observer. O’Connell’s best-known published work is probably The Celebration of Mass: A Study of the Rubrics of the Roman Missal, which was published in 1956, but he also wrote Church Building and Furnishing: The Church’s Way, which was published in both Britain and America in 1955 and widely distributed. The latter work was principally a detailed examination of the rubrics governing church building and furnishing, and while it was not dogmatic about style, and was open to the idea of architectural innovation, it reflected the writer’s view (and the view of the Vatican) that innovation should be tempered by tradition. O’Connell cited the Council of Trent, ‘that nothing disordered may meet the eye, nothing distorted and confused in execution, nothing profane and unbecoming, since sanctity befits the house of God’ (quoted in Proctor, p. 17). Central to this was the commissioning of high quality artefacts and fittings, and the avoidance of mass-produced ‘ecclesiastical kitsch’.

Although Builth was a very large parish in 1950 it had only a small Catholic population, but thanks to a legacy from the Vicar General Mgr George Nightingale £6000 was made available towards the cost of building a new church. A site was acquired on the edge of the town and a design was commissioned from the architect T. Edmund Rees of Merthyr Tydfil. The builders were Messrs F. Morris of Hereford. The foundation stone was laid by Bishop Petit on 16 July 1952 and the church, dedicated to Christ the King, was opened on 21 May 1953.

The Builth church is not particularly original or ground-breaking in its plan and general arrangement but is notably well-detailed; presumably Fr O’Connell closely oversaw the building work. The original arrangement of the sanctuary is illustrated in O’Connell’s book on Church Building; it had an ‘English altar’ of the type popularised by J. N. Comper and Percy Dearmer, with a dossal, riddle posts and timber canopy. This area has been reordered (most recently in 2003, when a stone altar was installed for the fiftieth anniversary of the church’s consecration). The original altar has been pushed back against the east wall, but the altar canopy remains, and generally the interior appears little altered since the 1950s.

Description

The church is built in a modern round-arched style which has been described as a marriage between Arts and Crafts and the Romanesque. The plan comprises a wide aisleless nave with a west porch, sanctuary and flanking flat-roofed sacristies. The walls are of pale red brick laid in Flemish bond, while the overall pitched main roof is covered in pantiles. The wide gabled main west front has a projecting porch with a pitched tiled roof and a round-arched central doorway with three orders of brick arches. The porch is flanked by pairs of small round-headed windows and set in the wall above is a stone crucifix, somewhat in the manner of Eric Gill, carved in relief with the inscription REGNAVIT A LIGNO DEVS (God has ruled us from a tree – a phrase from the hymn Vexilla Regis, written by Venantius Fortunatus in the sixth century in honour of a relic of the True Cross). A receipt preserved in the parish archives shows that the crucifix was carved by Francis Leech of Layton & Leech, stonemasons of Cambridge. It is not clear if Leech was also the designer.

Both the porch and the main front have sloping side buttresses which produce a battered profile. The side walls of the church are divided into four bays by sloping brick buttresses with 2/3/3/3 small-round headed windows in each bay. The main roof has deep eaves carried on tiled kneelers at either end. The side walls of the sanctuary and sacristies also have pairs of round-head windows; the east end wall is blind.

The interior is a single wide space with a wood parquet floor, plain plastered walls and a curved overall ceiling. At the northwest corner is the baptistery, with a wrought iron railing enclosing a small octagonal stone font. The riddel posts from the original high altar have been relocated to this area. At the east end the small sanctuary is raised one step above the main level. Above the original high altar and the modern forward altar is an oak canopy with a gilded dove set beneath. A shallow projecting stone piscina is set into the wall on the right hand side. The small stone forward altar dates from 2013. All the windows are clear glazed with small rectangular leaded panes. The furnishings and woodwork generally are of high quality. The carved and painted Stations of the Cross are by Dame Werburg Welch OSB, a disciple of Desmond Chute and Eric Gill (more information here). The confessional in the northwest corner and the statue of Christ the King over the high altar were made by the woodcarver Charles Victor Gertner of Hereford for the previous chapel (his work can also be seen at Ledbury and Weobley, qqv), and the two oak statues of St Joseph and the Virgin Mary flanking the sanctuary were carved by Francis Leech. The church retains its original chairs and oak draught lobby at the entrance.

*Update* The church, forecourt walls, gate and gate piers were listed grade II in May 2024, following Taking Stock: Listed Buildings – Full Report – HeritageBill Cadw Assets – Reports (cadwpublic-api.azurewebsites.net)

The post Builth Wells – Christ the King appeared first on Taking Stock.

Burry Port was a small fishing settlement until the 1830s, when substantial docks were built to export the products of the Gwendraeth coalfield. In 1849 a large copper works was built on the dock. The railway arrived in the 1860s. In the twentieth century anthracite was the main export and after 1914 there was Royal Ordnance factory at Pembrey Burrows nearby. All these industries have now closed, though the docks remain.

In 1917 the Rev. John Jarvis arrived as chaplain to Lady Catherine Ashburnham at Pembrey House and also ministered to Catholics working at the ordnance factory. When Lady Catherine left Pembrey, Fr Jarvis remained as parish priest for both Pembrey and Burry Port. In 1932 Lady Howard Stepney, a Catholic convert, purchased a hall in Pencoed Road, Burry Port for use as a church. It had previously served as a military canteen, YMCA hostel, cinema and skating rink.

By the late 1950s the building was in poor condition and funds were raised locally for the building of a new church. Designs were prepared by Sir Percy Thomas & Son and the new church was opened by Bishop Petit of Menevia on 30 August 1964. It seated 200 and cost £16,000. The church was designed to a hexagonal plan, with the altar placed to allow the priest to say Mass facing the congregation as well as facing eastwards as traditionally. A large forecourt was created in front of the new church on the site of the previous hall. The same architects also designed a new parish hall, built behind the new church.

The interior was reordered in 1988 (architect Ron James of Llanelli), with a new Welsh slate mensa over the original base of the main altar and slate plinth for the tabernacle. The side chapel was divided from the body of the church by a glass screen. The new altar was consecrated and the church dedicated by Bishop Mullins of Menevia in January 1989.

Description

The church is not orientated; the liturgical east end faces north. The building is hexagonal on plan with a small narthex projection with canted sides at the front and a rectangular side chapel and a rectangular sacristy attached at the rear, flanking a small projecting sanctuary with canted sides. The walls are of dark grey brick laid in stretcher bond and the shallow conical roof is covered with natural slate. From the apex of the roof rises a fibreglass fleche. The narthex has a fully glazed front with timber cladding above, against which is attached a small statue of Our Lady. The two side walls flanking the narthex have full-height strip windows.

Inside, the floor is tiled, the walls faced with cement render and the roof slopes close-boarded with the iron ribs of the roof structure exposed. Large square openings, now glazed, in the left rear side wall open into a small side chapel. On the right rear side wall are doors to the confessionals and sacristy. The windows in the body of the church are all clear glazed. In the small carpeted sanctuary the altar stands on the upper of two steps with full-height stained glass windows to either side. The windows are not dated but clearly of the later twentieth century; they depict Christ and Our Lady and commemorate a number of local families. Amongst other furnishings the benches are presumably original, while the altar and tabernacle were both remade with slate detailing in 1988 by Osborne, Davies & Sons of Carmarthen. The timber Stations of the Cross were, according to the parish website, carved by Italian craftsmen.

The post Burry Port – Our Lady Star of the Sea appeared first on Taking Stock.

A fuller outline of the development history of the Caldey Abbey monastic community is set out in the list description below. Very briefly, Caldey was established as an Anglican Benedictine priory under Abbot Aelred Carlyle in 1906. In 1913 most of the community was received en bloc into the Roman Catholic Church. However, it overreached itself financially and in 1928 decided to withdraw, relocating to Prinknash in Gloucestershire. The island was then purchased by a branch of the Cistercian order from the Belgian house of Chimay, an austere offshoot of that Benedictine order known as the Trappists, who took up residence in 1929. The priory became independent of Chimay and was raised to the status of an abbey in 1959.

In 1906 ambitious plans were prepared for the Anglican community by a novice in the community John C. Hawes (who trained as an architect and had a varied and colourful life, ending his days as a hermit on Cat Island in the Bahamas). The writer and illustrator Peter Anson (himself later a novice at Caldey) recalled in The Tablet:

‘…the plans and perspectives of an Abbey Gate House and Guest House, designed by Mr Hawes, which aroused my seventeen-year-old enthusiasm as a student of the Architectural Association. Even more exciting was a small bird’s eye sketch of a great Abbey, with a large apsidal-ended church, two transepts, three towers and an enormous cloister garth, which the ever optimistic Dom Aelred expected would begin to rise within a few years’.

Hawes’ plans were not realised, and while the abbey complex as designed by John Coates Carter is not exactly modest, the church (built in 1909-10) is relatively simple, originally intended to be temporary, and does not form a conspicuous feature of the large complex. It originally had a rich complement of furnishings, including a high altar constructed of stones from medieval Benedictine houses, with an elaborate painted reredos; some were removed at the departure of the Benedictines in 1928, while the remainder were lost when the church was gutted by fire in 1940. It was restored and austerely refitted by the monks and reopened for worship in 1951. No architect has been identified for this restoration. The buildings were repaired and re-roofed in 2002-4 with the help of substantial grants from the Heritage Lottery Fund and Cadw (architects Acanthus Holden). The monastery buildings are still occupied by the Cistercians and are not accessible to the general public.

Description

See list description below, where those parts relating to the abbey church are highlighted in bold.

The abbey church stands at the rear south east corner of the main abbey complex. The building is not orientated; the liturgical east end faces to the west. All directions in the following description are liturgical.

The plan comprises a long nave and a short lower sanctuary under pitched roofs with a tower part way along the north side. The external walls are faced with whitewashed roughcast, with dressings and window surrounds of grey stone; the roofs are covered in plain tiles. The gabled west end has a round-arched main doorway with a rose window with plate tracery above. On the south side is a lean-to addition made in the 1950s in the form of an aisle, terminating in the tower. Above the addition are five small rounded-headed windows with a further two windows beyond the tower. The tower itself is battered with paired windows at belfry level. On the north side of the church is a parallel range containing a statio or assembly room which terminates at the west with an apsidal end belonging to a former chapter house. The small sanctuary was apparently converted from a former sacristy in the 1950s.

The interior is austere, as befitting a Cistercian house, with a woodblock floor, plastered walls and a timber hammerbeam roof. There is a timber west gallery. The small windows high in the wall are mostly clear glazed. In the body of the church are some stalls on both sides with panelled backs. In the east wall of the nave is a round arch leading to the sanctuary. The area in front of the sanctuary is raised two steps above the level of the nave and has an altar made of a single massive stone block. The sanctuary is raised a further two steps and has a modern stone altar set in a recess in the east end wall.

List description

Reference Number: 17324
Grade: II*  
Date of Designation: 23/09/1996  
Date of Amendment: 28/03/2002  
Name of Property: Caldey Abbey  
Unitary Authority: Pembrokeshire  
Community: Tenby  
Town: Tenby  
Locality: Caldey Village  
Easting: 214173  
Northing: 196605  
Location: On hillside above the village, about 500m SE of the harbour.  

History: Roman Catholic abbey built 1910-15 to designs by John Coates Carter of Cardiff. Built for the first ever community of Anglican monks, established in 1896 by B F Carlyle, who took the name Dom Aelred. The community followed the Benedictine rule, and was backed by the ‘high church’ or Anglo-Catholic wing of the Church of England. It first came to Caldey in 1901-2, invited by the owner, the Rev W D Bushell, but left for lack of funds. Support from leading Anglo-Catholics allowed the purchase of the island in 1906, and then began a small programme of building, but one with very ambitious intentions A first cottage-scale temporary range was eventually incorporated into the present quadrangular monastery, itself intended to become a boys preparatory school when a much larger monastery should be built on the higher ground to the SW. In the event the sequence of building was more piecemeal and stopped in 1913 when the monks were received into the Roman church, after the Anglican authorities took alarm at the increasingly elaborate rituals practised by the community. £68,014 17s 10d (£68,014.89) was estimated to have spent by 1913, including buying the island. Rising debts led to the community being moved to Prinknash, Gloucestershire in 1928, and the island was purchased by the Reformed Cistercian community of Chimay, Belgium. A fire on September 25, 1940 destroyed the older cottage part of the monastery (S range of cloister) and gutted the Abbey church, which was restored in 1951. The Monastery was raised to the status of Abbey in 1959. The sequence of building was that a row of cottages was built in 1907, to be used temporarily by the community. A chapel (the present abbey church) was added on the E end in 1909-10, and quickly filled with elaborate fittings, although still intended to be temporary. It was then decided to extend this S range into a quadrangular monastery. In 1910 the chapter house and statio (assembly room) were added to the chapel, and the abbot’s house begun to the W. The plans for the E, W and N ranges, drawn up in 1911, were broadly completed, around a cloister. The W range had the refectory with NW kitchen tower over bakery and laundry. A near-detached private chapel for the abbot was added in the angle between the W range and the abbot’s house. The N range had two floors of monks’ cells, ground floor offices and washroom, and basement workshops, with NE corner block of library, teaching and study rooms. This block was simplified in execution for lack of funds. The E range was most simplified for lack of funds. Intended to have had a complex of guest rooms E of the cloister, only an entrance facade into the cloister was built, with lawns where the guest rooms were to have been. Work finished around 1915. The elaborate fittings were either removed in 1928 or lost in the 1940 fire. Small items survive at Prinknash and elsewhere. The cottage range W of the chapel was never rebuilt after the fire, the front wall remains as the rear wall of the S cloister. The roofs were retiled in 2000-1 and some lost features restored, under Peter Holden, architect. The buildings represent the most important complex of buildings built in Wales influenced by the Arts and Crafts movement of the early C20.  

Exterior: Abbey buildings, whitewashed roughcast, with red tile dressings in the form of sills, string-courses and arched hoods to windows. Red tiled roofs with prominent roughcast stacks. Free early C20 Arts & Crafts style with influences from Mediterranean and Romanesque Europe. Windows are either small-paned timber casements or leaded lights. Built around a cloister garth with church at SE corner, former abbot’s house and private chapel at SW corner, refectory to W, kitchen and laundry at NW corner, monk’s cells and offices over basement workshops in N range, with staircase, library and study room at NE corner. Single-storey E entrance facade, set back, in lawned courtyard, 3 bays, with arched main door in projecting centre with stepped parapet, and shallow curved oriel each side with tiny stone-framed window. Nogged brick string course right across, under empty narrow niche in parapet. Piers each side of doorway are in red and white chequerwork, arch is in brick. To R, a narrow link bay with small arched light, and then at right angles, S gable of library block with 3 stepped arched windows in gable, and 2 plain windows below; E side has gabled dormer with triple casement over 3 large arched windows. Forecourt has pergola on S, and single-storey N range parallel to church. Four casement pair windows under eaves to right, lighting statio, 4 tiny stone arched lights to left and 2 in apsed end, lighting chapter-room. Abbey church entrance faces E, with octofoil rose window, big Romanesque doorway with recessed inner arch, irregular quoins to jambs, and similar irregular quoins to angles, all in grey stone. S side has arched stone single-light windows at upper level, 2 to right shorter, lighting gallery, and 4 longer, over lean-to aisle added 1950 with 5 small arched windows and doorway to left. Sheer battered S tower, also roughcast, has pairs of stone bell-lights and parapet with minimal crenellation. Nave to left of tower has 2 round windows set high at eaves, and lower chancel (created in 1950 from former sacristy) has triplet of small arched lights. Blank rear wall of cloister S range with attached shed is remnant of the cottage range burnt in 1940. Former abbot’s house at SW corner is nearly free-standing with double roof running E-W (a tall chimney in the valley has gone). E front has stone quoins to left, 2 leaded windows in left gable above tiled lean-to each side of tall roughcast square porch with parapet and arched entry. Plank door with ornate hinges and latch within. Lean-to has hipped roof at left corner over chamfered corner window. S side has fine 2-storey gabled bay to left with chamfered angles and leaded lights flush with wall face. 4 lights to front, 1 to angle and 2 to sides, ground floor with two transoms. At SW angle a very tall thin circular stair-tower with tiny arched lights beneath flared conical copper roof (originally tiled with a timber belvedere balcony). W side has 2 gables, 5 leaded paired windows to first floor, a very broad arched window to ground floor left and 3 small stone arched lights to right. Quoins at left angle. On N wall, another round tower with conical copper roof, lower and broader than SW tower, containing external entrance to the abbot’s chapel, arched upper lights and arched doorway with stone jambs with small window to right, plank door. Chapel has apsidal ends to both walls and roof, louvred lantern on ridge, and row of 5 small grey stone arched lights under eaves. W refectory has basement storey, big roughcast N end stack with triple shafts, and slim round turret on centre of W wall with tiled conical roof. Two large plate-glass arched windows above (formerly with leaded glazing) lighting refectory. Red-tile sill course and linked arched hoods. Basement has broad brick arched window to left of turret. To left, a short link with hipped roof against refectory N gable, flat dormer, 2 C20 windows to upper floor and one arched basement window. Rainwater head dated 1913. NW prominent octagonal 2-storey kitchen with elaborate 2-stage roof, clerestorey glazing between stages, and louvred spired lantern above. Tall roughcast chimney with 2 round shafts to S. Large round-headed plate glass windows at each level (originally leaded) with linked tile hoods and sills. Short projecting lower N block has hipped lean-to roof and 4-light casement to upper floor on both W and E faces. Against N face is big covered external stair up from the N service court, with sloping tiled roof and 4 stepped arched openings on N. N range, set high above rock-face, is of 3 storeys plus attics. Full-height basement has massive red brick broad arches, ground floor has narrow arched windows with brick sill course and tile arched hoods linked by string course, and top floor has similar sill and string courses linking arches, windows are in pairs with stone jambs and centre pier. Massive hipped roof with end gablets and roughcast tall stacks, at left end, and on front roof slope. Six dormers of between 2 and 8 lights, 5 flat-roofed with pendants to cornices, the 4th with the main chimney rising through, the 6th with pyramid roof restored in 2001. Another tiny pyramid-roofed dormer restored on left end. Nine pairs of windows to 2nd floor to left of a bay with arched stair lights at intermediate heights. One pair and a single light to right. Ground floor has close-spaced group of 6 narrow lights with joined hoods to left, then 7 wider-spaced windows, and a pair of windows to right of stair lights. Basement has 5 broad half-round brick arches on low stone jambs of massive rock-faced stone blocks, and one narrower doorway with taller jambs to left of stair bay and another similar narrower arch to right, this one with stonework of left jamb also encompassing an arched doorway. Timber mullion and transom glazing with leaded lights. Stair bay has two arched lights, each with head breaking through sill course of a main floor level and tiled hood. To right, in angle to octagonal kitchen tower is a small room at ground floor level, corbelled out with chamfered NE angle. To L of main N range, gabled library block is set back, 3 storeys with buttresses framing basement and ground floors. Basement has 3 arched windows, first floor has double brick string course under 3 tiny arched windows with tiny roundels above, while gable has 3 stepped leaded arched windows as on S gable end.  

Interior: Cloister garth has 2 broad lunette openings each side with brick arches and leaded glazing. Stone sill course right around, and N range has arched centre doorway in massive rock-faced stone and brick steps down to grass. Stone jambs of window each side are carried down to ground framing 5 small basement lights below string course. Lavabo bay in NW corner with bell-cast pyramid roof and stone small lights. Stained glass by Dom Bede Bailey. N range has flat-roofed dormers as on N front, paired first floor windows with sill course and impost band linking paired hoods. Other 3 ranges have lean-to roofs. Some stained glass by Dom Bede Bailey. Refectory has elaborate 6-bay open timber roof with cambered tie-beam trusses on corbels, the bracing a full semi-circle under thin collar. Windbracing in 2 tiers. Fine large hooded fireplace to N wall with splayed stone jambs and timber lintel. The statue of St Michael formerly on the hood is now at Prinknash. Tiled hoods to windows and to arch over pulpit in W wall. Pulpit has panelled timber front above top of wooden wall panelling. Stepped triple window above S dais end. Blank tympanum over arched doorway to left of fireplace to kitchen. Kitchen has elaborate conical arch-braced roof with oculus. Simple wood fittings and remarkable glass tile wall cladding. Simple aisleless church has interior of 1949-51. Thin hammerbeam roof, gallery to E, round-headed arch to sanctuary. Chancel N window with monogram ABC. To N, the parallel statio has fine arched scissor-braced trusses and wind-braces to roof, at E end massive stone doorway with monolith jambs and lintel, plinth and impost stones and relieving arch. This opens into former chapter house with similar roof and apsidal end. Arched door with fine wrought iron hinges from cloister to statio. Abbot’s chapel has barrel vault, apse to each end, stone jambs to arches, and stone cornice. Oak panelling to c 2m high, oak plank doors with wrought iron hinges and good metal fittings. Stone arched piscina and shelf. Stained glass (not made at Caldey) with 6 figures associated with the Benedictine order (Benedict, Bruno, Romuald, John Gualbert, Bernard Ptolemy and Bernard of Tiron). Black and white marble floor. The elaborate fittings have been removed: it has an alabaster altar with tabernacle. Circular porch has stone piscina. Former abbot’s house main room has exposed ceiling beams, oak panelling to c 2m high, round-headed doors to cupboards, kitchen and hallway, with good door fittings. Large fireplace with decorated cornice, wooden beam corbelled from stone jambs. Arch to bay window with carved oak seat. Stained glass roundel by Dom Bede Bailey. Adjacent kitchen (originally abbot’s private secretary’s room) has oak doors to full-height cupboards with strap hinges. Stair hall with open-well oak stair, square newels with ball finials. Main newel has obelisk finial with flat top. First floor panelled doors, fireplaces with tiled cheeks in single-colour tiles. Corner room has arched door to turret. Turret is of concrete with semi-circular cast concrete landings up to observation level. NE library block has stained glass window of St Ambrose, by Dom Bede Bailey, in former scriptorium to ground floor; novices room above has scissor-braced roof. Stair adjoining to N block long corridors with cells to each side on first and attic levels. Plain stairs with ball-finials to newels.  

Reason for designation: Graded II* as striking complex of buildings with high quality architectural detailing and massing in a unique location.

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St David’s is the medieval parish church, probably dating from the late twelfth or early thirteenth century, which was built to serve the island community. Its original dedication is uncertain; the current dedication was given by the Benedictines in the twentieth century. The island was bought in 1792 by Thomas Kynaston of Pembroke, who built a mansion alongside the medieval priory. Major repairs to the church were undertaken by Cabot Kynaston in 1838 after the roofs and the south and east walls of the chancel had collapsed; the building was given new roofs and timber Gothick windows. More repairs were carried out c1900 under the auspices of William Done Bushell, who purchased the island in 1897. Seven years later in 1906 Bushell sold Caldey to Benjamin Fearnley Carlyle as a home for his newly-founded community of Anglican Benedictine monks. More repairs and alterations, including the re-opening of the chancel arch, were carried out in 1906-7, either by John Coates Carter, architect of the new monastery buildings, or by J. C. Hawes, who had trained as an architect and was a novice at Caldey. A font carved by Eric Gill was installed at this time.

In 1913 nearly all members of the Caldey community were received into the Catholic Church. Further repairs were carried by Carter in 1925, when the 1830s windows were replaced by simple lancets. Many of the new windows were filled with stained glass by Dom Theodore Baily OSB, who was a member of the Benedictine community in the 1920s and had trained under George Desvallieres and Maurice Denis in Paris. The building is not now used for services, except on request.

Description

The church consists of a short aisleless nave, a short chancel with an eastern bellcote and a west porch. The thick walls are of rubble stone and the pitched roofs covered with red pantiles, probably introduced by Coates Carter in the 1920s. Internally the nave walls have been stripped but the chancel walls are plastered. The roof has tie-beams supporting king posts and raking struts; the timberwork appears to be of twentieth century date. The round-headed chancel arch is also twentieth century but the stone imposts may be medieval. There are two plain altars of Penarth alabaster, probably by Coates Carter; one in the sanctuary and one in the nave to the right of the chancel arch. At the west end of the nave is a large Portland stone font with two bowls and inscribed pedestal, this was carved by Eric Gill and installed in 1906. Stained glass in the nave and chancel and in the west rose window is by Dom Theodore Baily OSB and was installed in the 1920s. The figures on the rood may have been carved by J. C. Hawes (the list entry says they were brought from Oberammergau).

List descriptions

Church

The list description for the church was revised and expanded in May 2024, following Taking Stock: Listed Buildings – Full Report – HeritageBill Cadw Assets – Reports (cadwpublic-api.azurewebsites.net)

Churchyard Cross

Reference Number: 26452
Grade: II  
Date of Designation: 28/03/2002  
Date of Amendment: 28/03/2002  
Name of Property: Churchyard cross in churchyard of Church of St David  
Unitary Authority: Pembrokeshire  
Community: Tenby  
Town: Tenby  
Locality: Caldey Village  
Easting: 214283  
Northing: 196631  
Location: Situated to S of Church of St David, in churchyard.  

History: Churchyard cross, c1920, presumably by John Coates Carter as a memorial to Margaret Egerton (d 1919) and Major Robert Egerton, killed 1917. The cross is similar in design to Coates Carter’s war memorial crosses at Prestbury, Cricklewood and Pembroke Dock.  

Exterior: Churchyard cross, stone, on rough stone step. Tapered octagonal base with well-lettered inscription ‘Pray for the soul of dame Margaret Egerton buried near this cross and also for her son Major Robert Egerton MC RFC killed in France 1917 aged 25’. Tapering tall slim cross. square at base, broached to octagonal with carved crucified Christ figure under stone gable.  

Reason for designation: Included as well-carved and well-designed churchyard memorial cross.  

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