Catholic Church of St Peter

Catholic Church of St Peter

This is a church in the French 13th-century Gothic style, comprising a nave and polygonal chancel, aisles with chapels, and a south-west tower. It is built of coursed rock-faced Pennant sandstone with lighter freestone dressings and bands, and has a slate roof. The openings have polychrome arches of pale limestone and mainly Pennant sandstone, with red sandstone used for the chancel and west window.

The distinctive south aisle features six gabled bays with three-light windows. At the east end of the south aisle is a three-bay polygonal chapel with a lower eaves line, single cusped windows, and a two-light east window under a gable. The nave has three clerestorey dormers with three-light windows with cusped heads and cusped barge boards. The chancel has three-light windows beneath gables, including high-set windows above the aisle chapels.

The four-stage south-west tower projects in front of the south and west elevations. The lower stage forms the porch, which contains on its south side a doorway with three orders of nook shafts, moulded capitals, and a moulded arch with hood mould and foliage stops. Double doors were installed in the 1960s and have narrow fluting. Above the doorway is a sculpture of St Peter in a canopied niche with a crocketed gable. The west face of the lower stage has a two-light window with plain hood mould, while both west and east faces have single windows to the second stage, with stair lights to the left side in the west face. In the second stage the south face has a pair of cusped lancets. The angles are rebated in the second stage beneath a moulded string course, above which in the third stage the rebates turn to angle buttresses. The third stage has in the south face triple cusped lancets, in the west and east two lancets, below which are five blind star-shaped panels. The upper stage is ashlar and has two nook-shafted two-light belfry windows. Above the windows the wall is rock-faced stone, with a moulded cornice and coping. A parapet may have been intended but was not added.

The west front has a doorway with two orders of nook shafts and a hood mould with head stops. Double doors are of the 1960s. The doorway is flanked by single cusped lights. Above a string course are taller cusped lights incorporating pointed trefoils in the tracery to the sides, and a tablet at the centre that incorporates a cross, swords, and helmet. The main west window is a rose window with polychrome surround and geometrical tracery. At the north-west angle is a buttress with a gabled cap. On the north side of the west front, balancing the tower to the south side, is the gabled baptistery at the west end of the north aisle, which has a three-light west window.

The north side has similar details to the nave and chancel, and an added cloister. At the west end the cloister has a doorway in an ashlar surround with a cusped arch and open trefoils in the spandrels. The first gable bay from the west end is blind with lean-to cloister; the second is higher and incorporates a north-west chapel with a lower gabled projection. Further east the cloister has a moulded parapet, three windows with shouldered lintels, and an added lean-to. The sacristy is at the east end and comprises a one-and-a-half storey wing that links to the west side of the Presbytery. The north side has four full dormers and a modern projection. The south side is three-windows with two-light transomed windows and cusped lights to full dormers.

In the porch is a blocked arch to the south aisle and an arch leading to the nave. Both have one order of nook shafts, moulded capitals, and hood moulds with ballflower stops. The baptistery on the north side of the nave is reached through a two-bay arcade with a round central pier and stiff-leaf capital. Between the porch and baptistery is an organ gallery enclosing a vestibule at the west end.

The six-bay nave arcade has octagonal piers and chamfered arches in late 13th-century style. The roof has arched and scissor braces on corbelled wall posts and has a boarded underside. There is no chancel arch; the division between nave and chancel is indicated by painted quatrefoils above and between the scissor braces. The chancel has an additional arcade bay continuous with the nave arcade, within which is a subsidiary two-bay arcade to the aisle chapels, with a round central pier and foliage capitals. The chancel has an arched-brace roof with painted underside. A reredos added in the 1960s of fluted polished stone is placed in front of the lower part of an original reredos, the upper part of which comprises sculpted angles on corbels and beneath gabled canopies, between which are panels with foiled circles, and on a string course with moulded cornice. The windows have painted reveals.

The Lady Chapel in the north aisle and Sacred Heart Chapel in the south aisle both have pointed wooden arches on round shafts from the aisles. They have painted ceilings and reveals; the Lady Chapel ceiling was repaired and repainted after bomb damage in the Second World War. The Lady Chapel has a cusped piscina and a five-bay reredos by Padraig Pearce. This has cusped arches and pinnacles and marble shafts. The central bay has a canopied niche with a sculpted figure of Mary, while the outer panels have scenes in mosaic from the life of Mary. The north-west chapel has an arched entrance with round freestanding piers and stiff-leaf capitals.

The Perpendicular style octagonal font has a panelled stem and quatrefoils around the bowl. It has been moved from the baptistery to the nave. In the Sacred Heart Chapel the stone altar has a bas-relief of the Last Supper. Stations of the Cross are dated 1926 and are composed of wall panels of Venetian mosaic set in frames of grotte rouge marble, designed by T.A. Jones of Cardiff.

The church retains a complete set of late 19th and early 20th century stained glass. The chancel windows are of 1883 by Meyer of Munich, one of which was donated by the 3rd Marquess of Bute. They show New Testament scenes above scenes of the early evangelists in Wales, England and Ireland—namely Saints Fagan, Patrick, Gregory and Augustine. In the Sacred Heart Chapel the east window, also by Meyer, shows Saint Catherine at the foot of the Cross. The other chapel windows are by the firm of Hardman of Birmingham and depict Saints John the Evangelist, Patrick, Bernadine, and Helen. The Lady Chapel north windows, also by Hardman, have figures of Saints Joachim and Anne.

The nave south aisle has memorial windows by Hardman dated between 1893 and 1910. They narrate scenes from the Nativity to the Passion of Christ. In the north aisle are five memorial windows by Sanders in the style of the Birmingham school, dating from 1905 to 1914. They narrate biblical scenes including the Sacred Heart pleading, the Marriage at Cana, the Annunciation, and the Expulsion from Paradise. A further window in the baptistery shows the Baptism of Christ. The porch has a stained glass window inserted in 1929 commemorating John Lloyd (1630–79), a seminary priest, and Phillip Evans (1645–79), a Jesuit Priest. Both were executed in Cardiff and were canonised in 1970 as two of the 40 Martyrs of England and Wales.