Church of St Athan

Church of St Athan

This Grade I listed church is built of local limestone rubble with dressed quoins and varied stone used for window tracery, with the Victorian windows probably employing Bath stone. The roofs are laid in Welsh slate. The building follows a cruciform plan with a nave, chancel, south porch, north and south transepts, a central crossing tower, and a boiler room.

The west gable of the nave features a large three-light Decorated window with interesting tracery and cusped trefoils in the head. Below this is a fifteenth-century doorway with a two-centred head and fillet dripmould, now fitted with replacement double doors bearing Victorian ironwork. The north wall displays two two-light Decorated windows with quatrefoil heads, while the south wall has two similar windows flanking the porch, all with Y-tracery in what appears to be Bath stone, indicating a Victorian date. The south porch itself retains a medieval roof with arched braces and a collar purlin, and features a two-centred entrance arch with a triple chamfered doorway beneath a fillet hoodmould.

The south transept has three-light square-headed windows with reticulated tracery on either wall, the one on the east wall showing two rows of reticulation while the one on the west wall is said to be a Victorian insertion. The south gable displays a three-light reticulated window with quatrefoils above, its hoodmould ornamented with headstops, and rises to a coped gable topped with a cross. The chancel contains a thirteenth-century priest's door below four lancets above, though the upper wall is evidently rebuilt and the windows are Victorian. The east gable has a three-light Decorated style window with quatrefoils, dated to 1890, and terminates in a coped gable with an apex cross. The north wall is largely blind and mostly obscured by a lean-to boiler room, an extended Victorian vestry with two pointed arch doors, three small windows, and a tall stack above and behind.

The north transept mirrors the south one except that both its windows display two rows of reticulation and its gable is uncoped. The crossing tower is distinguished by diagonal buttresses visible only above the roofs, single round-headed bell-chamber openings (their heads obscured by clock faces), and a machicolated and castellated parapet with small corner pinnacles.

The interior throughout is plastered and painted. The nave roof is an open wagon-ceiled construction above collar level with pine boards. Although clearly reroofed during the Victorian restoration, the rafters themselves are probably fifteenth-century, though repaired. The chancel has a three-bay Victorian roof with arch-braced collar trusses, while the transepts have plainer Victorian principal rafter roofs. The crossing arches to east and west have been widened and remain plain. Squints provide views into the chancel from the transepts. The north transept, now serving as a vestry, is plain.

The furnishings are predominantly Victorian with one exceptional exception: an extremely unusual tulip-shaped font in Sutton stone, presumably early medieval and possibly thirteenth-century. Among the Victorian furnishings, the communion rail is noteworthy.

The south transept constitutes the outstanding feature of the church, containing two major monuments to the de Berkerolles family of East Orchard. The primary monument commemorates Sir Roger de Berkerolles (died 1351) and his wife and stands in a flamboyant ogee-arched niche beneath the south window. The coloured figures lie upon a chest decorated with painted figures—monks and laity—on the sides, with the bright colouring appearing to date from the mid-twentieth century. The secondary monument honours Sir William de Berkerolles (died 1327, father of Sir Roger) and his wife. More damaged than the first, it is also coloured and features painted relief figures around the chest. It is unclear whether this tomb was moved here by the son or represents an later addition.

The church possesses six bells: four were recast in 1919 and two others were added at that same time.