Catholic Church of St Illtyd

A long, low building designed to integrate with surrounding housing. The church is constructed from concrete block with harled and painted render, topped by a low swooping asbestos cement slate roof with deeply overhanging eaves. Dark-stained timber windows are arranged in long bands on chamfered concrete block sills with emphasised vertical divisions. Cement blocks remain unrendered at plinth level.

The building comprises three principal blocks – church (with articulated sanctuary and nave), hall and sacristy – organised asymmetrically. The church occupies the widest end of the range to the north. From this point, the building successively steps down in height, with the plan stepping in on the eastern side, so that each block is clearly articulated. The main glazed entrance is off centre to the north on the long continuous western elevation, incorporated into a continuous clerestory ribbon beneath a sawtooth roofline descending from liturgical east to west. Two glazed rooflights at the corners of this western roofline mark the steps down from nave to hall and hall to sacristy.

At the north end (the liturgical east), the roofline rises to a clerestory over the sanctuary, glazed on its eastern face and topped with a simple steel cross on the north face. The sanctuary is also lit by tall, narrow glazed panels at ground level on either side where the building steps out to the north. A side doorway and banded windows beneath the eaves wrap around the north-east angle where the main body of the church steps out beyond the sanctuary.

The hall is stepped down from the church and stepped in on plan to the east, with a doorway and banded windows wrapping the south-east angle. The sacristy follows similar proportions, stepped down again with a wraparound glazed south-east corner. A final step in creates an east-facing side entrance and a blind boiler room block chamfered on its south-east side. The roof sweeps outward here, with its timber eaves at the extreme south-west resting on a boundary wall which rises to meet it in materials matching the church walls, with a timber gate.

The interior features white painted walls and exposed natural materials, including a parquet floor (carpeted to the nave and sanctuary) and boarded beams and ceilings. These ceilings are asymmetrical with forms that vary between church and hall. No structural distinction separates the church from the hall, enabling the hall space to serve as an extension to the church when required.

The altar and font are positioned on raised platforms divided by an intermediary mid-level zigzag step. The altar, font and lectern each take the form of an inverted timber ziggurat on a block plinth, as does a celebrant's bench extruded from the sanctuary wall behind the lectern. Both altar and font have dark slate tops; the font features a nonorthogonal hexagonal timber lid. An off-centre tabernacle sits on an extruded shelf, decorated with symbols of the chalice, wheat and fish. Original benches and furnishings, all part of the original design, line the nave, with timber Stations of the Cross positioned to either side. The sanctuary is lit by a high east-facing clerestory to channel morning light onto the altar. To the right of the altar is a shadier low-ceilinged alcove containing the baptistry and organ.

To the rear of the hall is a confessional with a confessor's entrance on the hall side and the priest's entrance from the large sacristy room beyond, reached by an axial corridor. On the west side of this corridor are a kitchen with servery hatch to the hall, toilets and boiler room.