Church of Saint Catherine

Church of Saint Catherine

This is an Anglican parish church built in 1911, constructed from squared rock-faced stone with extensive ashlar dressings and green slate roofs. The building displays an ornate late Gothic style with influence from the Arts and Crafts movement. It comprises a nave with clerestorey and lean-to aisles, a large three-stage south-west tower, and a chancel with transepts. The north transept contains a choir vestry, while a north-east gable in the angle to the chancel contains a clergy vestry and toilet.

The exterior features segmental-pointed window openings mostly with hoodmoulds and square red sandstone voussoirs above, with fanciful tracery throughout. Gables are shouldered with flush ashlar bands, moulded copings and cross finials. The west end displays two bands above a large six-light window with unusual tracery. Below this is a three-sided baptistery projection with single lights, quoins and parapet. A tower stands to the left with a buttress to the right, followed by a three-light window at the end of the north aisle.

The three-stage tower has large quoined clasping buttresses on three sides and a south-west octagonal stair turret. Both buttresses and turret have battered lowest stages. The west doorway is detailed in the Gothic style, with curved coping linked to a first-floor string course. The south side displays a three-light window similar to the aisle windows. The tall second stage has double bands halfway along each face, framing a plain square-headed two-light window. The bell-stage features two traceried two-light bell openings with hoodmoulds on each face, separated by thin wall-shafts. These wall-shafts are carried up to an ashlar embattled parapet with pyramid bosses in the frieze and blind tracery in the battlements. The parapet is framed by the tops of the buttresses and the ashlar octagonal top to the stair tower, also battlemented. A foundation stone dated 1911 appears on the south-east buttress.

The nave contains pairs of flat-headed two-light clerestorey windows to each of six bays (five on the south), with each bay featuring corbelling, a sill course and raised quoined piers. The aisles have three-light windows with buttresses between, chamfered eaves, and impost and sill bands interrupted by buttresses. The north aisle contains a north door with elaborate free Gothic detailing, broad with chamfered jambs and a hoodmould turned up at each end to join the impost band. At the centre, this is brought up to the base of a column shaft with carved finial, under a short length of stepped parapet with shallow curved coping at the centre step. The south aisle has a door in its right bay.

The transepts have side buttresses and a high plinth carried all around the transepts and chancel at the level of the aisle sill band. The south transept features a five-light south window. The chancel has a clasping buttress to the south-east, two short buttresses to the east, and a single buttress to the north-east. On the south side is a long two-light window, while the east end has a large and broad seven-light window with inventive tracery divided into two-three-two lights by two plain mullions. A wall shaft rises from the window apex to the gable, with two flush bands in the gable and a pair of louvred vents. The north-east gable to the right has three single square-headed windows and a north side door. The north transept adjoins with a four-light north window and an octagonal ashlar chimney on the gable slope. A basement door is accessed by steps.

The interior features whitewashed plastered walls with ashlar dressings. The roof structure is exceptionally ornate, comprising seven main arch-braced collar trusses with tracery above the collars and six intermediate trusses without corbels of arch-bracing, all on corbels. The seven-bay arcades feature two-chamfer pointed arches with hoodmoulds and carved stops, octagonal piers and bases. The floors are wood-block. The aisle roofs have arched braced beams on corbels. Segmental-pointed arches open to each aisle with hoodmoulds and carved stops. A south-west porch beneath the tower has a terrazzo floor, segmental-pointed doors to three sides, a window to the south, and a coved boarded ceiling with ribs. The west end baptistery projection features a segmental-pointed arch with hoodmould and a stone roof within. The chancel arch is broad and two-chamfered with a pointed profile; the inner arch stands on column shafts with Art Nouveau carved head corbels on each side. The chancel has a terrazzo floor and a panelled boarded segmental-pointed roof in twelve panels. Segmental-pointed arches open to the north and south. The south wall contains a pointed three-bay arcaded recess framing a piscina and two seats. The Holy Trinity chapel in the south transept has a scissor-rafter roof and one arch-braced collar truss. An arch from the north aisle gives onto a passage behind the organ. The choir vestry in the north transept has a boarded panelled roof.

The fittings are exceptionally ornate. Pews and stalls of American oak date from 1913, with the stalls featuring pierced traceried fronts. An exceptionally ornate Austrian oak screen of 1925 comprises seven bays with openwork crocketted gables and finials over ogee crocketted arches; the gables are infilled with delicate tracery and finials between gables. The lower rail features flower and leaf motifs with open traceried panels below and inscription scrolls along the bottom rails. Each of the eight posts bears a statuette under a crocketted finial.

The reredos and panelling to the east wall are highly carved with blind tracery panels, cresting and finials. The Austrian oak centre square panel depicts the Crucifixion with Saints Mary and John in a carved floral border under an ogee canopy with cresting and finials. Two blind traceried panels flank this on each side with canopies, followed by two outer full-length panels with attached thin shafts bearing small statues under canopies of Saints Catherine and Cecilia. The outer two-bay wall panels each bear a statue on a corbel representing Saints David and Teilo. The altar below features a centre roundel with a six-pointed star framing a sexfoil and traceried panels on each side depicting vine, corn, lily and passion-flower motifs. Diagonally-set outer piers each have two columns. Traceried oak altar rails complete the arrangement.

The pulpit is of Austrian oak on a Caen stone base with five squat column shafts, featuring Gothic detailing with ornate ogee blind tracery, a vine cornice and a front figure of the Good Shepherd.

The reredos in the Holy Trinity chapel is of Austrian oak with three blind tracery panels, the centre panel featuring a canopy over a carved Crucifix. The outer piers contain four small statues of the Evangelists under two canopies. Panelling flanks each side with a panelled altar bearing a Celtic cross. The chapel also has traceried oak screens to the aisle and to the chancel.

At the west end stands an ornate font of carved stone, octagonal with traceried panels. The front panel bears a shield and dove, while the shaft is ringed by eight green and red marble shafts with ashlar linked vine-leaf capitals. A carved oak angel lectern stands in the nave, and a brass lectern dated 1909 appears in the chapel. The organ in the chancel north arch is in a panelled case with minimal Gothic framing to the pipes.

The stained glass is of considerable artistic merit. The east window, dated 1913, is by A L Moore & Son and depicts the Ascension with the Nativity and Angel at the Tomb across seven lights. The west window, signed by G B Cooper-Abbs of J Wippell of Exeter and dated 1961, is a six-light window depicting the Good Samaritan, works of mercy and ten pioneers of medical research; it commemorates W Rufus Lewis. The baptistery contains three narrow lights from 1922 showing Christ, Saint Luke and the Virgin and Child. The south transept south window, dated 1960 and inscribed "The Majesty of the Crucified Saviour", depicts the Nativity, Baptism, Christ as teacher and the Transfiguration, bearing marks of Wippell and Cooper-Abbs. The north aisle west window, dated 1950 and showing the early life of Jesus, is by Celtic Studios, Swansea, probably designed by B T Evans.