Church of All Saints, Pen-y-Fai

Church of All Saints, Pen-y-Fai

A church of Early English and Decorated style, built to a cruciform plan with a crossing tower. The walls are constructed of coursed, rock-faced Pennant sandstone with ashlar dressings, banded with Ham stone, and finished with coped gables on moulded kneelers and a slate roof with crested ridge tiles. The walls are characteristically battered at the base in the local medieval style and feature moulded corbel tables throughout.

The south nave wall displays a shallow buttress to the right of centre and two 2-light Decorated windows. A porch projects from this wall with continuous roll moulding framing a pair of German wrought iron gates decorated with rich foliage patterns. Inside the porch is a mosaic floor, a south doorway with head stops of the Llewellyn sons, and a boarded door with stylised strap hinges; above the doorway is a cross and foliage in relief. The south transept has diagonal buttresses and a 3-light Decorated south window with a small narrow blind opening above it. The chancel features a pointed trefoil window in the south wall, and the east window consists of three stepped lancets with a small blind trefoil window below the ridge. A small vestry is situated on the north side of the chancel. The north transept is similar to the south except for a 3-light Geometrical-style window. The north nave wall has two 2-light Decorated windows. The west window is 3-light, below which is a lancet window lighting the font, and below the ridge are three stepped small, narrow blind windows. The tower is two-stage with the upper stage narrower; it has an embattled parapet in ashlar and a polygonal turret on the south-east side rising only to the lower stage. The lower stage contains a pair of lancets in the south wall; the upper stage has paired lancets with louvres in each face except the south wall, which displays a clock made by J Smith of Derby, set in an ashlar roundel.

The interior was designed and fitted according to Llewellyn's preferences and combines Danish and Roman influences with polychrome effects achieved from a variety of quarries and manufacturers. The walls are constructed of ashlar in local grey-green Quarella stone with bands of Ham stone from Somerset. The nave has a mosaic floor composed largely of green tesserae, made by the Vitreous Mosaic Company of London. The chancel steps are of white Great Belton and black Ashburton marbles from Devon.

The nave has an arched-brace roof with wind braces and a frieze of arcading above the wall plate. The east and west crossing arches feature moulded capitals above short shafts with head corbels of archdeacons; below these are the emblems of the Evangelists. Inside the crossing are four brackets at high level carrying sculptures of the four bishops of Wales. The chancel has a boarded wagon roof with cherubs at the feet of the ribs. The east window has a rere-arch with detached Purbeck shafts with shaft rings. The piscina and sedilia have detached Purbeck shafts (white marble for the piscina) and cusped arches in Early English style; the north wall contains a Bishop's seat in a niche with a Madonna in bas-relief made of Roman terracotta brought from Florence.

The reredos is by William Clarke of Llandaff and constructed of pink Penarth alabaster with niches having gold mosaic backgrounds and shafts of green Conomara marble between them. The central group of three niches contains figures in Castelina marble by Goscombe John depicting the Nativity, Crucifixion and Descent, with three apostles in Derbyshire alabaster on either side. The east window by James Powell & Sons depicts the risen Christ flanked by Saints Leonard and David. The nave windows display shields bearing the arms of Eton and Winchester schools, the four dioceses of Wales, and Canterbury and Gloucester.

The pulpit, by Llewellyn and Clarke, is circular and made of Quarella stone with five figures (Peter, John the Evangelist, Christ, Matthew and Paul) in china, made at the Royal Danish Porcelain Factory in Copenhagen, a cornice of Penarth alabaster, shafts of red Ogwell marble, and a pedestal of Penarth alabaster. The font is a copy of Thorwaldsen's Angel Baptism in Copenhagen, comprising a life-size sculpture of an angel in Carrara marble on a slate-coloured marble base. The adjacent window displays glass depicting John the Baptist. Oak choir stalls were made by Clarke of Llandaff, whilst the nave contains plain benches. A lacquered brass communion rail is by Benham & Froud of London.