Church of St Maelog

Church of St Maelog

A simple Gothic style church comprising a nave with lower and narrower chancel, transepts with roofs parallel to the nave, west and south porches, and a north chapel. The walls are rubble stone with a slight batter to the base, detailed with 19th century Bath stone dressings and hood moulds. The slate roof sits behind coped gables on moulded kneelers.

The south porch contains a 19th century doorway with continuous chamfer and double doors with vertical ribs and iron studs. To its right is a 2-light geometrical nave window. The south transept has a higher eaves line and features a 3-light south window of stepped main lights and plate-tracery roundels over the outer lights only. Its east wall has a single ogee cusped window. The transept projects slightly beyond the east end of the nave, with a lean-to projection between them serving as a rood-loft stair. The nave east wall displays a quatrefoil window below the apex and a blocked former rood light on the left side.

The chancel has two 2-light square-headed windows with pointed lights, sunk spandrels and hood moulds. A round-headed doorway left of centre contains a boarded door with strap hinges. Flanking this are grave slabs to Emma Nicholas (died 1799) and Richard Morgan (died 1806). The east wall carries added heavy buttresses, the left-hand one set well back from the angle. The 3-light east window has intersecting tracery. The former northeast chapel, now a vestry, adjoins it in a continuous elevation with a 3-light window of reticulated tracery and two 2-light square-headed north windows, each with pointed lights and pierced spandrels. The higher north transept contains windows with geometrical tracery—3-light to the north and 2-light to the west. The nave north wall has two similar 2-light windows.

A triple west bellcote is gabled. The 2-light west window has geometrical tracery. The west porch, now a boiler room, has a single-chamfered late medieval doorway with red sandstone dressings and double boarded doors. Tomb railings attached to the south wall of the porch enclose an area on the southwest side of the nave and are also attached to the west wall of the south porch.

The nave roof comprises 3 bays with half bays at the ends, featuring collar-beam trusses with diagonal struts and braces. Simple plastered pointed arches lead to the transepts and chancel. The chancel arch is wider than the chancel itself, suggesting the chancel is later in date. The chancel has a 6-bay collar-beam roof with boarded underside. In its south wall the principals sit above corbels of an earlier roof. A 2-bay north chancel arcade has broadly chamfered 4-centred arches on a thick central pier. The chancel south wall contains a 15th century tomb recess with a moulded 2-centred arch. The altar reredos is wood-panelled with blind cusped arches behind the altar. The transepts and vestry have plaster ceilings with thin ribs. The north transept is separated from the vestry by a wooden screen.

The Perpendicular style font has an octagonal bowl and stem. Its tall late Gothic-style canopy was added after 1935. Plain panelled pews, a polygonal pulpit with pierced quatrefoils, choir stalls with blind-arcaded fronts and a communion rail with iron uprights and wooden handrail are late 19th century.

The church contains numerous wall tablets, the earliest in the chancel and northeast chapel. In the chancel east wall is a marble tablet with apron and pediment with finial, commemorating Mary Rees (died 1757). A simple inscribed slate panel to Elizabeth Thomas (died 1745) is in the south wall. The northeast chapel retains 18th century memorials, including a freestone classical tablet with open pediment and pilasters on consoles in the east wall to Mary Vaughan (died 1751), and a slate inscription panel in the south wall to William and Mary Davies (died 1775 and 1776). The north respond to the north transept arch carries a slate panel to Elizabeth Davies (died 1797). Later memorials date from the 19th or 20th centuries. In the south transept east wall is a marble panel on a polished red-granite background to Richard Jennings (died 1908) by W Davies. The principal monument in the nave south wall is to George Thomas Griffith (died 1862) in Gothic style with flanking panels and arched top, by C Sinclair of London. A brass plaque to Dr David Davies (1777-1841), professor of midwifery at the University of London, was added in the 20th century. In the nave north wall is a brass to Richard Jennings (died 1891) by Frank Smith & Co of London, with a marble tablet to John Jones (died 1879) by W Davies to its right. In the north transept, a memorial erected in 1923 commemorates the Rev Peter Williams (1723-1796), annotator of the Bible, in the form of a marble sarcophagus.

The east window, c1875, displays Faith, Hope and Charity in Pre-Raphaelite style. The chancel south window depicts angels with flaming torches, dating after 1903. In the south aisle east window are small roundels with angels against coloured foliage. The north and south windows of the transepts contain memorial windows to the Lowry family who died in the armed services, in Art-and-Crafts style of c1928, possibly by Henry Dearle. The south window, a 1914-18 war memorial, depicts Saints David, Michael and George. The north window depicts the resurrected Christ meeting two disciples on the road to Emmaus. A related west window of the north transept depicts Saints Stephen and James, commemorating members of the Lowry family killed in the 1939-45 war, by Powell & Sons of Whitefriars, London.