The Roman Catholic Church of St David

The Roman Catholic Church of St David

This is a substantial stone church of Gothic design, built of snecked stone with sandstone dressings under slate roofs. It comprises a nave, chancel, south aisle, south porch, tower and spire. The tower and spire rise from the angle between the aisle and chancel.

The architectural detail is rich throughout. The building features angle buttresses, a plinth, dentilled stone eaves cornice, raised copings and ornate cross finials, with a sill band running around except on the north side. Windows are pointed-arched with Geometrical bar tracery. The south aisle is gabled, lower and narrower than the nave, with a gabled porch set to its left. The porch has a pointed-arched doorway with roll mouldings and ball flower ornament supported on attached shafts with foliage capitals. The jambs are enriched with dog-tooth ornament, and the door is planked with strap hinges. A small trefoiled light sits to the east side of the porch.

The aisle windows are mostly pointed-arched, containing two cusped lights with a trefoil or irregularly foiled light above. The hood moulds feature head-end bosses depicting a man and woman. There is one window to the left of the porch and three to the right, separated by angle buttresses.

The three-stage tower is surmounted by a stepped pyramidal spire, with a polygonal stair turret to the southeast angle. The lower stage contains a small chapel and has a two-light window to the south side matching the aisle fenestration. A string course marks the short second stage, which has a trefoiled lancet to the south and a pair of similar lancets to the east. The third stage is narrower with offsets and features an ornate eaves cornice with a band of blind trefoils. Louvre openings appear on each face, containing two cusped lancets rising from a central colonnette with a quatrefoil above and a quatrefoil frieze to the sill. Each face of the spire has a lucarne. The stair turret has a small gabled porch on its south side with an angle buttress rising from its apex, containing a pointed-arched doorway with planked door. Small stairlights appear to the south and southeast. The ornate spire to the stair turret includes tall gablets over blind or narrow trefoiled openings with attached shafts.

The south side of the chancel is divided into three bays by ornate buttresses, each with blind foiled motifs under gablets enriched with ball flower ornament. To the left is a pointed-arched entrance with several orders of mouldings and attached shafts, beneath which sits a blocked doorway with Tudor-arched head. Above the entrance is a rose window. The centre and right bays contain pairs of tall cusped lancets with individual hood moulds featuring foliate end stops. Set-back buttresses with gablets sit at the angles. A boundary wall runs east from the southeast angle. The five-light east window is ornate, featuring cusped lancets with an irregular foiled motif under the arch head flanked by cinquefoils. The north side of the chancel has windows matching the south side, though the buttresses here are plain and without gablets. The right bay has a shallow arched window opening.

The west end consists of the gable ends of the nave and south aisle with an angle buttress between. The ornate west window contains four trefoiled lights and a heavily cusped rose, with a small quatrefoil in the gable above. The aisle has a two-light window as elsewhere. Four windows appear to the north side of the nave, with an angle buttress between the pairs.

Internally, the nave is five bays with cusped arch-braces on long wall posts resting on large stone corbels bearing angels. Smaller, alternating, more heavily cusped arch-braces sit on foliated corbels at wall-plate level. A five-bay arcade to the south aisle features double-chamfered pointed arches on diagonally set clustered shafts with ringed capitals and bases. A high pointed chancel arch has several orders of chamfers and mouldings, the inner ones supported on short black marble shafts with foliated capitals and ringed bases.

A doorway to the north side of the nave contains similar mouldings and attached shafts, with double wooden doors leading to adjoining friary buildings. Above, lighting the corridor beyond, is a short shallow-arched window. Between and flanking the north nave windows are seven arched stone recesses containing the stations of the cross in high relief. The remaining seven stations are positioned in the south aisle.

The chancel has a keel-vaulted roof, boarded and panelled with foliate bosses. A crucifix is suspended from the ceiling, originally attached to the rood screen. The stone altar stands at the centre of the chancel, having been moved from its original position at the rear. The table is supported on four marble columns with foliate capitals, with panels to the rear bearing biblical scenes in relief. Choir stalls now occupy the east end. Flanking the east window are marble statues of St David and St Asaph under canopies decorated with pinnacles and crockets, designed by Pugin. The window recesses feature heavily cusped rere arches. A door to the left of the north side opens to a confessional, with an aumbrey to the far right.

The south aisle has a roof of closely-spaced scissor-braces. To the right side of the entrance is a stone piscina with trefoil-arched head. A shallow double-chamfered arch on short shafts to the east leads to the Lady Chapel, which sits under a vault beneath the spire. To the right of the archway is a statue of mother and child beneath a canopy with pinnacles. The marble altar table rests on red marble columns with ringed capitals and bases. Beneath the table, behind glass, lies a reliquary of wooden open-work with three sexfoils to the front under a hipped rooflet with frieze to ridge, containing the bones of the Roman martyr labelled 'Corpus Sancti Primitivi M.' A decorative marble reredos adorns the space, its central part covered by a banner and flanked by statues under highly ornate canopies.

A large octagonal stone font by Pugin stands at the west end of the nave, supported on circular marble shafts around a central stem and on an octagonal base. Each face bears the emblems of the Evangelists in relief, including winged beasts, angels and foliage. Wooden pews with plain moulded bench ends occupy the nave. A small twentieth-century wooden pulpit sits to the southeast of the nave, and a pipe organ by Henry Poyser of Chester stands to the southwest in a fine wooden Gothic-style case. A fragment of the former baptistery screen remains on the south side of the organ.

In the north wall of the chancel is an effigy of Rudolph William Basil, 8th Earl of Denbigh (1823–92), erected by his second wife Mary. It was designed by Purdie and undertaken by Boulton & Sons. The effigy lies under an ornate vaulted and ribbed canopy with a triangular head featuring crockets and pinnacles. The depressed arched opening is cusped with foliate bosses. Black marble shafts to the reveals support statues of a man and woman. The front of the tomb has five bays divided by black and red alternating marble shafts, each with a trefoiled blind arch. The central bay bears a coat of arms flanked by symbols in quatrefoils including birds, a cross and a tree. To the right is a sepulchre to Lord and Lady Fielding, consisting of two cusped blind arches containing brass tablets within a frame with Tudor flower enrichment and a triangular head. A small brass tablet to their daughter Hilda, who died aged one, stands further right.

Fine stained glass adorns the east window, depicting the life of Christ including the Crucifixion. The north nave windows contain stained glass bearing saints, made by Hardman in 1852; that to the right is dedicated to Thomas and Elizabeth Kent. Stained glass appears in the south aisle windows, mainly twentieth-century, with that to the west by Harry Clarke, dated 1931–4. Further stained glass decorates the chancel. The church retains a fine collection of High Gothic fittings, including encaustic floor tiles and deeply-coloured stencilled wall coverings.

A friary building adjoins the church at right angles to the far left.