St Davids University College (Original Buildings)

St Davids University College (Original Buildings)

This is a substantial academic complex built in simplified Tudor Gothic style with rendered walls, minimal ashlar dressing, and slate roofs with ridge stacks that were later rebuilt in black brick. The four ranges cross at angles to create a picturesque corner treatment, with projecting coped and shouldered gables set slightly inward from the range ends. The south front features a flush entrance tower. Within the quadrangle, corner stair towers rise above eaves level and are capped with octagonal shafts and lead ogee domes. The north hall and chapel range is particularly elaborate, with a large central gable and long first-floor library windows.

Throughout the building, windows are cast-iron, small-paned and flat-headed, with Tudor-arched heads to each light. Most are 2-light windows with painted cast-iron frames, though end gables have larger mullion-and-transom lights and gable attics have small plain casement pairs. Gables are distinguished by stepped diagonal buttresses. Main ranges display a moulded ashlar plinth at sill level, hoodmoulds to ground-floor windows on outer facades, a continuous dripcourse over upper windows, and a larger ashlar moulded eaves course interrupted by painted cast-iron bosses bearing rosettes, a JSH monogram, or the college arms. Within the quadrangle, the three accommodation ranges have roughcast walls rather than lined stucco, with no ground-floor hoodmoulds, and staircase entries feature unmoulded Tudor arches.

The south facade is arranged in 1-5-1-5-1 bays with a centre ashlar 4-centred archway, a narrow oriel above, and a tower featuring an attic window, stringcourse, recessed plaque bearing Hanoverian arms, and battlemented parapet. The courtyard face of the tower is simpler, with a 3-light mullion-and-transom window at first floor and no armorial plaque. Archways have hoodmoulds. The quadrangle elevation shows a simple 4-1-4 bay arrangement with doors in the second bay on each side of centre and corner 3-sided towers. The east and west sides of the quadrangle are plain 8-window ranges with two doors each. The outer west front is 1-9-1 bays, similar to the south facade but without a centrepiece and with a porch to the Principal's house in the angle to the northwest gable. The outer east front is considerably plainer, 1-8-1 bays, with utilitarian gable ends.

Within the quadrangle, the south front presents a big shallow central gable with flanking buttresses carried up to curious chimney-like finials, an apex clock, two long 3-light mullion-and-transom windows flanking a canopied statue niche containing a modern Saint David statue, and a squat 4-centred doorway with ogee hoodmould. The hall and chapel ranges are set back behind a 4-bay cloister, now glazed, featuring plain 4-centred arches with buttresses between and a parapet with battlements over buttresses. The hall retains original 2-light mullion-and-transom windows matching those elsewhere. The chapel was remodelled in 1879-80 by T G Jackson and given four Perpendicular Gothic stone traceried windows.

A spine range running north ends in a similar but plainer frontispiece, shallow gabled with side buttresses carried up, an apex roundel, a first-floor 6-light window, and a ground-floor 4-centred arched doorway. Two-window wings on each side feature mullion-and-transom 2-light windows and coped shouldered end gables. A basement lies under the right wing. These wings screen the utilitarian rear of the chapel and hall ranges and the plain north gable of the east range. The north gable of the west range matches those elsewhere but includes a basement storey. A flat-roofed addition to the Principal's house occupies the northwest angle.

Staircases are plain dog-leg stairs with Jacobean-style finials to bottom newels, with four doors per floor serving single-room accommodation. The hall and chapel are separated by a low-ceilinged hallway with steps down to the chapel and up to the hall, continuing north with a staircase leading to the library.

The chapel interior is predominantly of 1879 but retains its original roof. The roof spans 3 or more bays and features 4-centred arched trusses with 3-sided panelled painted ceiling. An ornate carved and painted Gothic wood organ gallery and side stalls with coved canopy carried around the interior feature a projected centre gallery and painted organ pipes. The colour scheme, repainted around 1980, is predominantly dark green with gold for the intricate carving and red for stall back panels.

On the north side of the chapel, a 2-bay arcade of 1879 features ashlar-moulded pointed arches on circular piers to the north aisle with side-facing stalls. Stalls in the aisle have large Tudor-rose heads to bench ends, while those in the main body of the chapel feature scrolled arm-rests. T G Jackson recorded reusing some deal stall elbows turned out from New College Chapel, Oxford.

The sanctuary contains extensive and elaborate Gothic panelling in limed oak from 1934 by W D Caroe, including a high square-headed reredos, panelling on each side and returned on side walls, matching prayer desks, organ and pulpit. The south wall of the chapel displays a 1914-18 War memorial in painted wood, Gothic in style, alongside a former altarpiece—an Italian early 19th-century copy of Correggio given by J S Harford. Three hanging brass chandeliers hang within the chapel. The north wall of the aisle displays alternative reredos schemes by W D Caroe dating to around 1934.

The hall features Tudor-arched roof trusses similar to those in the chapel and is entered from the east end.