Church of SS Mary and Nicholas

Church of Saints Mary and Nicholas, Beaumaris

This is a substantial parish church in the Decorated and Perpendicular styles, comprising an aisled nave with south porch, lower chancel and west tower. The building is mainly of coursed stone with freestone dressings and battlements concealing flat-pitched roofs.

The two-storey south porch has an added upper storey built of more random rubble than the ground floor. The entrance has a two-centred arch with continuous chamfer and hood mould, fitted with double boarded doors. Above is a two-light window with wooden Y-tracery and diamond leaded glazing. The west side wall contains a blocked narrow Tudor-headed doorway.

The buttressed south aisle has windows that were replaced in 1902. To the left of the porch is a window with two-light Y-tracery set in a 14th-century opening that retains its hood mould and weathered head stops. To the right of the porch are two two-light Decorated windows in earlier openings with weathered hood moulds and head stops. The nave has a clerestorey of five early 19th-century round windows with quatrefoils, and a single 16th-century three-light square-headed window. The east wall of the aisle has a larger four-light four-centred Perpendicular window.

The three-bay buttressed chancel has a diagonal southeast buttress, and its battlements are enriched by tall crocketed pinnacles. It has three-light Tudor-headed Perpendicular windows. The east window is five-light Perpendicular, positioned above the blocked segmental arch (or relieving arch) of a former crypt.

On the north side is a lean-to vestry occupying the two eastern bays of the chancel. It has a plain coped parapet and slate roof. It has a pointed east doorway with a partly missing hood mould and double boarded doors. On the north side are two pointed windows with hood moulds and Gothic small-pane sashes with intersecting glazing bars. Above the vestry are three-light square-headed windows with hood moulds and sunk spandrels, dating from the 16th or possibly 17th century. To the right of the vestry the chancel has a Perpendicular three-light window similar to those on the south side.

In the north aisle the wall has clearly been heightened, distinguishable by the change to larger stone blocks above window level. The wall has central and angle buttresses. It has three two-light Decorated windows with so-called "Kentish tracery" in 14th-century openings with hood moulds and head stops. A 14th-century pointed doorway right of centre has a continuous chamfer and boarded door. The nave clerestorey has two 16th-century three-light windows. The aisle west window is two-light Perpendicular and the south aisle has a modern two-light square-headed west window.

The three-stage tower has angle buttresses in the lower stage. The south side has a pointed doorway with hood mould and a studded door. Above it is a cusped window. The west side has a loop below a cusped window. The north side is similar but has stair loops to the turret on the northeast side. The middle stage, which is stepped in on the west side, has similar windows. On the east face is the line of an earlier, steeper nave roof. The upper stage, rebuilt in 1825, has large two-light Y-tracery belfry openings with louvres, and big clock faces at parapet level. The parapet has coped battlements and broad crocketed corner pinnacles.

The porch has a single cross beam on corbelled brackets. The 14th-century nave pointed south doorway has a continuous chamfer with hood mould and head stops, and recessed modern doors. Above the doorway is the line of an earlier porch roof.

Inside, the nave has four-bay 14th-century arcades with octagonal piers, moulded capitals, and two-centred arches with linked hood moulds, which have head stops on the south side only. The renewed cambered tie-beam roof does not follow the nave bay structure. It is seven bays, with beams on corbelled brackets, bold painted bosses (some of which are original), and plastered panels with moulded ribs. There is no tower arch, but a pointed doorway and door with strap hinges. At the west end of the nave is an organ loft on panelled wooden posts, with a panelled front enriched by open quatrefoils in roundels.

The chancel arch is comparatively low, suggesting heightening of the nave in the late medieval period. It comprises two orders of continuous roll moulding to a two-centred arch with hood mould and plain stops (probably intended for carving but not carried out). The aisles have 19th-century trusses on corbelled brackets and boarded ceilings. In the north aisle is an ogee-headed piscina, of which the former corbelled bowl has been broken off. In the south aisle the piscina also has a broken bowl, under an ogee head of which the crockets are partly missing.

The chancel has a renewed cambered tie-beam roof similar to the nave, but with curved ends forming brackets bearing painted shields, painted and carved bosses in the centre, and painted and moulded plaster panels. Above the altar the former ceilure is a four-centred panelled ceiling with moulded and painted plaster panels.

Among the furnishings, the outstanding feature are the choir stalls of around 1500, probably brought here from Llanfaes Priory. The stall ends have Gothic panelling and poppy heads, and the fronts have blind Gothic panels. Seats have rounded backs and angels on the arm rests. There are 19 contemporary misericords, all with winged angels but with different heads to the supporters, and a 20th dated 1902 in similar style. The 19th-century octagonal font has slender clustered shafts forming the stem, and a bowl with deeply cut Gothic panels. Pews of 1902 have ends with linenfold panelling. The pulpit has similar detail. The south aisle chapel has a brass communion rail. The sanctuary has a communion rail post-1947, and diaper work to the floor. A mid-20th-century wood-panelled Gothic reredos has fluted shafts surmounted by angels in prayer.

There are a large number of memorials. The most significant are the medieval memorials in the porch and north aisle. The porch contains a stone coffin and lid with high-relief effigy of Joan (died 1237), wife of Llywelyn the Great and daughter of King John. It was originally at the nearby Franciscan Friary of Llanfaes, but after the Dissolution was put to mundane use until it was rescued and taken to Baron Hill in 1808, as recorded on two plaques, in English and Latin respectively, and finally to the church. In the north aisle is a late 15th-century alabaster chest tomb with full-length effigies, and the chest enriched with weepers (in the form of saints) under canopies alternating with blank shields, formerly painted. The figures are said to be William Bulkeley (died around 1490) and his wife Elen Gruffydd of Penrhyn, or alternatively Rowland Bulkeley (died 1537) and his wife Alice.

In the chancel north wall is a Gothic stone tablet erected in 1809 commemorating David Hughes (died 1609), who established the town's first school in 1603 and under whose will almshouses were built in 1613 at Elusendai in Llanfaes parish. It has clustered shafts and pointed arch framing Welsh and English inscription panels surmounted by an urn. Beneath it is a brass plaque to Anne Owen (died 1694) with Coat of Arms, and to its right a small late medieval brass to Richard Bulkeley and his wife Elizabeth of around 1530, in a shallow arched recess with sunk spandrels. Further right is a sarcophagus-type tablet to Captain Hugh Rowlands Williams (died 1795). A freestanding classical memorial to Charlotte Williams Bulkeley (died 1829) is by John Ternouth of London. A sculpture of a kneeling woman stands on a high base with English and Welsh inscriptions. Within the sanctuary is a high-relief memorial to Baron Bulkeley of Beaumaris (died 1822) by Richard Westmacott of London. It has a bust on a pedestal, and a mourning woman comforted by a hooded female figure bearing a cross.

In the east wall of the chancel is a memorial to Margaret Jones (died 1609) comprising a Latin inscription in an arched panel. The sides have motifs such as spade and scythe, and skull and cross bones, in relief. It is surmounted by a fluted entablature, achievement and orb finials. On the right side of the east wall is a memorial to Thomas Caesar (died 1632), comprising inscription panel, angels facing outwards to the sides, scrolled pediment with achievement and skulls right and left. Below it is a simple but large slab commemorating William Thwaytes (died 1563). In the chancel south wall is an oval inscription panel to Wynn Howard (died 1796). A marble Gothic wall tablet under a crocketed ogee arch is to Hugh Davis (died 1821) and niece (died 1869), and a marble inscription panel to Charles Yorke (died 1897) is signed (Yarwood?), the name partly worn away.

At the east end of the nave north wall, above the pulpit, is a Tudor-Gothic tablet to Rowland Williams (died 1836), by Robert Johnson of London. It has an arched panel flanked by clustered shafts, above a frieze of quatrefoils in lozenges. On the corresponding south side of the nave are brasses to William Turner (died 1904) and to the Reverend Thomas Kyffin (died 1909) by Jones and Willis.

In the south aisle the north side of the chapel has a classical wall tablet to Margaret Hughes (died 1697). It has Ionic columns, apron with garland, entablature and achievement flanked by finials. On the corresponding south side is a monument to Owen Owen (died 1833) and family by Spence of Liverpool. Its panel is spanned by an arched wreath and has an apron with coat of arms.

Other monuments are simpler. In the south aisle, beginning at the east end, are tablets to the Reverend Owen (died 1831), Lieutenant John Russell (killed 1918), Henry and Harriet Selwyn (died 1831 by drowning in a shipwreck off Beaumaris) by J. Harris of Bath, a brass to Charles Stanhope (died 1895), and tablets commemorating Mary Hyde Page (died 1794) and Lewis Evans (died 1711). The west wall has a tablet to Thomas Williams (died 1739). In the north aisle, beginning at the east end, are tablets commemorating John Spencer (died 1823) and wife, comprising two panels with pilasters and achievement, Hester Meyrick (died 1840), a double inscription panel to William Turton (died 1841) and Richard Turton (died 1835), Ann Ferrier (died 1849), a brass to Emily Greville (died 1900), comprising a cross intertwined with flowers, and tablets commemorating Samuel Hollyman (died 1728) and John Williams (died 1734).

Several windows have stained glass. The east window depicts the Crucifixion, post-1918 and possibly by J.C. Bewsey. In the chancel south wall the east end window has fragments of medieval glass, and the window adjacent to it shows the Coronation of the Virgin and Nativity, post-1918 and signed by J.C. Bewsey. The aisles have east windows by C.E. Kempe, depicting Nativity to the south and the Angel and the Shepherds to the north. In the south aisle windows are early 20th-century windows, of which the easternmost window depicts the presentation of Jesus at the Temple, and the westernmost window Moses and Noah, by C.E. Kempe. In the north aisle the early 20th-century easternmost window depicts the New Testament scenes 'suffer little children' and 'this is my beloved son', by Wailes and Strang of Newcastle-on-Tyne. The westernmost window, of similar date, depicts Saints Peter and Paul, by Kempe and Tower.