Church of Saint Mary

Church of Saint Mary

An Anglican parish church built in Early Decorated Gothic style, constructed from rock-faced squared Pennant sandstone with Bath stone dressings and slate roofs with coped gables and red terracotta ridges. The building comprises a broad nave with lean-to aisles, a tall south-west porch tower, a south transept organ chamber, and a north transept vestry.

The four-stage tower has flat buttresses clasping the angles except at the north-west, where a polygonal stair tower rises. A sill course runs beneath the third-stage windows, with a double string course between the third and fourth stages, on which clock faces are positioned. The tall top stage contains long two-light bell-openings with traceried pointed heads to narrow lights fitted with louvres, joined by hoodmoulds, and flanked by flat buttresses with gabled caps. A string course sits above under the embattled parapet. The ground floor features a south moulded pointed door with column shafting, keeled moulding and nailhead ornament, and a west two-light window into the porch. The second stage is blank. The third stage displays a triplet of lancets on each face with Y-tracery to the broader centre light and blind side lights. A high double plinth runs to the tower and west end.

The nave's west elevation has a large pointed window of 1-3-1 lights between two stepped buttresses with gabled caps above the line of gable coping, with a short centre buttress below the window. The window contains a sexfoil to the main light. String courses cross the gable, which has an apex roundel, and sit beneath the main window. The west end of the lean-to north aisle has a two-light window.

The nave's south elevation has the tower to the left of a three-bay aisle with high plinth and three two-light pointed windows with hoodmoulds, separated by two buttresses. The aisle is lean-to with a three-bay clerestory above containing three small lancets to each bay with linked hoodmoulds, and bays divided by gable-topped ashlar strips. Hoodmoulds link to a string course at impost level that is carried over the strips.

The chancel has a south transept (organ chamber) attached, with stonework continued flush with the south aisle. It has a high plinth, a mid-buttress with gabled cap dividing two two-light pointed windows with hoodmoulds joined across the buttress, and an east lancet with hoodmould. The chancel's south side features a high sill-course beneath a narrow traceried lancet, and a two-step buttress at the extreme right. The east end has a double plinth, a gabled buttress on each side, and a large five-light pointed window set high with a stepped sill-course beneath. An apex string course and roundel crown the gable. The chancel's north side has a similar lancet to the south, then a gabled vestry, lower than the organ chamber opposite, with an east door and window and a north three-light window. The north aisle comprises four bays similar to the south, with a door in the left bay.

Interior

The broad, high nave contains four-bay arcades of alternate round and quatrefoil piers of ashlar banded in red sandstone, carrying pointed arches with hoods and head stops at each end. A four-bay arcade runs to the north and a three-bay arcade to the south, with a blind plain pointed arch in the west bay, filled by the tower. The clerestory has triple lights with column shafts and moulded arches. The nave has an open roof with trusses carried on column shafts on carved corbels below the clerestory string course. These shafts carry deep arched braces of collar trusses which have short king posts with arched braces on all four sides—two to upper collars and two to a long axial beam that carries collar rafters. Five main trusses and a sixth at the west without column shafts, plus four intermediate trusses, are present. A moulded wallplate runs throughout. The aisles have lean-to roofs. The south aisle has a big pointed west arch to the porch with double oak doors with leaded glazing, and a pointed ashlar east arch infilled with oak panelling and a door to the underside of the organ. The porch has exposed stone walls, with a foundation stone on the north wall laid by Mrs John Player in 1904, a high beamed ceiling, a north-west door to the tower stair, and a segmental-pointed arch to the south door. The north aisle's west end was enclosed in the twentieth century. An exterior door is present in the right end bay, and an east end moulded pointed door with hood opens to the vestry in the north transept.

The chancel has a broad pointed chancel arch with a chamfered outer arch carried right down, while the inner arch bears a hollow moulding on column shafts with portrait heads of the Bishop of Llandaff and King Edward VII. A two-bay roof is panelled and boarded, with the second bay enriched with gilded bosses and a gilded carved wallplate cornice. A moulded arch between bays is carried on oak wall-posts on column shafts carried down to the sill course, with corbels below. Triple sedilia on the south wall feature column shafts carrying angels, cusped pointed heads, relief carving, and a cornice over. A big moulded pointed arch opens to the south transept organ chamber. A pointed cusped door with hoodmould leads to the north vestry, with three tiny pointed open vents on the north wall passing through to the vestry. The north and south walls each have windows set high on either side of the sanctuary, each a single light in a pointed three-bay arcade with column shafts and hoodmoulds, with the outer lights blind. A fine five-light east window has column shafts and a hoodmould. The floor is stepped with black and white marble paving: two steps at the chancel arch, one before the vestry door, one to the sanctuary, and three to the altar. The vestry and organ chamber have boarded panelled roofs.

Fittings and Memorials

The reredos of 1921, to John Player, is an extraordinarily elaborate and very large alabaster piece with long relief carving of the Last Supper under a canopy with ogee heads and much cusping and crocketting, arranged in 3-1-3 bays. The outer bays have cresting over; the centre is taller with a big projecting nodding ogee canopy and cornice. Beneath the Last Supper panel is a band of rosettes with an IHS centre shield, above a lavishly carved shelf. Flanking piers each carry two statues under ogee arches and top cornices. Outer wall panels contain Ten Commandment and Lord's Prayer panels with ogee crocketted heads, angel and shield relief over, all in square-headed panels with fine vine-trail borders.

An ornate ashlar octagonal pulpit of 1905 stands on a massive round red sandstone shaft, the pulpit carved with highly decorated panels featuring red marble thin angle shafts and pairs of small pointed arches with green marble shafts, and coloured marble flush inserts in the panels. A marble top forms the cornice. Curving ashlar steps with a wrought iron balustrade and brass handrail provide access.

A font of 1905 is constructed of ashlar with a quatrefoil bowl on a centre shaft, ringed by four marble shafts. Altar rails rest on brass Gothic supports dating to around 1905. An oak eagle lectern, oak stalls, and two reading-desks with traceried open top panels are present. Pine pews feature open traceried panels to the front kneelers. An organ of 1905 by W. Hill & Son occupies an oak Gothic case.

A tablet on the west wall commemorates Dr John Jones, who died in 1922.

The east window, probably of 1921, was made by T.F. Curtis of Curtis, Ward & Hughes and depicts the Ascension with finely etched faces and predominantly blue colouring. An exceptional west window of around 1920, to the memory of Lieutenant John Y.P. Jones killed in 1918, is in Arts and Crafts style with deep colours, showing a battlefield burial service in the main three lights with an angel in each side light.

The south aisle contains a first World War Memorial window of around 1920 by Curtis, Ward & Hughes, depicting Valour and Sacrifice, with a second and third window dated to around 1935 by Powell of Whitefriars, showing the Nativity and Saints John and Peter respectively.