Church of St Mary is a Grade II listed building in the Vale of Glamorgan local planning authority area, Wales. First listed on 22 July 2003. A Victorian Church.
Church of St Mary
- WRENN ID
- nether-plaster-sunrise
- Grade
- II
- Local Planning Authority
- Vale of Glamorgan
- Constituency
- Vale of Glamorgan MP: Kanishka Narayan (Lab)
- Country
- Wales
- Date first listed
- 22 July 2003
- Type
- Church
- Period
- Victorian
- Address
- Church of St Mary, St. Mary Hill, Cowbridge / Y Bont-Faen, Llangan
- OS grid reference
- SS 957 793
- Coordinates
- 51.50319, -3.5029
- Source
- Cadw listing
Description
The Church of St Mary is a Grade II listed building constructed from local white limestone random rubble, featuring Sutton stone dressings and Welsh slate roofs with sandstone copings. The church consists of a nave, chancel, south porch, and west tower.
The nave includes a three-light window on either side of the central gabled porch, with lights that have stilted arch heads and a dripmould above. The porch has a similar arch, gable coping, and a cross at the apex. The east gable is coped and also has a cross. On the north wall, there are two two-light windows of a similar design, and a Victorian buttress is located at the north-west corner.
The chancel features a priest's door on the south wall but lacks windows on both the south and north walls. The east gable is coped with a cross, and there is a two-light east window with pointed heads and a quatrefoil above, likely designed by Prichard.
The square tower exhibits a pronounced batter and long-and-short quoins, with its stonework more carefully coursed than the rest of the church, indicating it is likely a Victorian addition. The tower is plain until the bell stage, which has a two-light opening with louvres and a dripmould on each face, topped with a corbelled out and castellated parapet.
Inside, the church is predominantly Victorian in style, with all furnishings from that period except for a 12th-century tub font and several notable 18th-century wall memorials. The rood-stair is inaccessible, and both the Victorian tower arch and chancel arch are present, with a plain 12th-century arch set into the north wall around the more westerly window. There may be a 13th-century double piscina on the south wall. The nave features a six-bay arch braced collar roof, while the chancel has a waggon roof, both of which are Victorian. A plaster bust of John Griffiths, who served as Vicar from 1848 to 1855 and later became Archdeacon of Llandaff from 1877 to 1887, is also present.
Local climate
Church of St Mary sits in one of the wettest parts of the UK, with an average of 1,170 mm of rain a year. This makes it wetter than 90% of listed buildings in the UK. Its exposure to wind-driven rain is greater than that of 94% of listed buildings.
It experiences an average of 19 freeze-thaw cycles a year, fewer than 80% of listed buildings. Of these, 7 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
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- 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
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