Church of St. Owain is a Grade II listed building in the Vale of Glamorgan local planning authority area, Wales. First listed on 30 April 2004. Church.
Church of St. Owain
- WRENN ID
- roaming-jamb-sorrel
- Grade
- II
- Local Planning Authority
- Vale of Glamorgan
- Constituency
- Vale of Glamorgan MP: Kanishka Narayan (Lab)
- Country
- Wales
- Date first listed
- 30 April 2004
- Type
- Church
- Address
- Church of St. Owain, Ystradowen, Cowbridge, Penllyn
- OS grid reference
- ST 011 776
- Coordinates
- 51.48923, -3.42534
- Source
- Cadw listing
Description
The Church of St. Owain is a Grade II listed building constructed from local blue lias limestone rubble, carefully coursed and squared, with Bath stone dressings and Welsh slate roofs. The interior features multi-coloured brick. The church includes a nave, chancel, south porch, west tower, and a north vestry and meeting room, all designed in a style reminiscent of the late 13th century.
The nave consists of three bays and features a tall gabled porch at the center. This porch has a pointed arch door with a drip mould, blind return walls, coped gables, and an apex cross. To the left of the porch is a trefoil-headed lancet, and to the right is a two-light Early English window with a trefoil in the head. The eaves are supported by brackets, and the east gable has coped gables and an apex cross. The lower chancel has similar roof details and a plain two-light window. The east gable features a three-light window with a circular cinquefoil in the head. The north wall includes a small vestry with a tall medieval-style chimney, and beyond this is a gabled meeting room made from the same materials, which has a three-light window in the gable and lancets along the long wall. The north wall of the nave has three trefoil-headed lancets and a Caernarvon-headed doorway leading into the tower. The tower is two stages high with a battered base and features a two-light west window with a quatrefoil head, tall louvred openings on the east and west faces, and a two-light opening on the south face. It has a tall gabled saddleback roof topped with a ridge cross.
Inside, the church remains largely unaltered, except for the painting over of the patterned brick walls. The furnishings are contemporary and complete, including an octagonal font with a pinnacled cover located under the tower, which is believed to have come from Llanbradach and dates back to 1896-1897. The chancel and tower arches are plain, with chamfers that die into the jambs. The roofs are arch-braced collar beam types, with three bays in the nave and two bays in the chancel. One memorial from the previous church remains, and there is good grisaille glass in the east window.
Local climate
Church of St. Owain sits in a wetter-than-average part of the UK, with an average of 1,150 mm of rain a year. This makes it wetter than 89% of listed buildings in the UK. Its exposure to wind-driven rain is greater than that of 92% of listed buildings.
It experiences an average of 21 freeze-thaw cycles a year, fewer than 78% of listed buildings. Of these, 8 follow at least 1 mm of rain in the preceding 48 hours. Average temperatures at this location have risen by 0.3°C per decade since 1991.
Averages for 1991–2020; temperature trend 1991–2025. Figures describe the wider area (a grid cell of roughly 10 km), not the individual site. Contains modified Copernicus Climate Change Service information 2026.
More on this building
Sign in or create a free account to unlock:
- No EPC on record for this property
- No sale records on file
- No related consent applications matched
- Detailed attributes — period, style, materials, features
- Flood risk assessment
- Radon risk assessment
- Weather exposure and heating demand — rain and frost month by month and year by year, wind direction, solar and humidity
Matched applications, energy data and sale records are assembled automatically and may contain errors. Flag incorrect data.
Similar buildings
The closest matches to this building from all 493,000 UK listed buildings, by architecture, period and materials.
this building 1 similar nearby listed buildings
Nearby listed buildings
- Churchyard Wall and Gates of Church of St. Owain
- Barn at Court Farm
- Former Cartshed and Granary at Court Farm
- Church of St. Senwyr
- Cross in Churchyard of Church of St. Senwyr
- The Cottage
- Llansannor Court
- West Wing of Llansannor Court (aka Court Cottage)
- Church of St Donat
- Churchyard Wall of Church of St Donat