Catholic Church of St Illtyd

Catholic Church of St Illtyd

This is a Catholic church with two distinct building phases. The original church survives in rubble stone with Bath stone dressings and a slate roof. Its gable end faces west and is rendered and white-painted, featuring a stepped triple lancet window with the right light at a higher sill. The west wall of the north aisle is also painted and rendered. The stone north wall is articulated by buttresses and contains a shallow arched doorway to the north-west and two-light plate-traceried windows with shallow arched surrounds. A similar window appears in the west wall. The rubble stone south aisle has a comparable two-light window to the left of the porch and a single lancet to the right. The porch is constructed in ashlar with a high coped gable topped by a cross finial. It has a shallow outer arch with hoodmould over an inset pointed arched doorway with splayed sides, double boarded doors, and a small lancet vent in the gable.

The 1894 addition is considerably larger in scale. The south transept projects and is very broad with a basement, two bays above, and a large rose window in a corbelled-out gable. A mid pier divides the bays. The basement has a cambered-headed window to the left and a door to the right, while the floor above contains two large cambered-headed windows with triple lancet tracery. A moulded brick cornice sits over the basement, with corbelling beneath the gable storey and hoods and surrounds to the windows. An inset projection or stair turret in the angle to the nave features a west lancet and a hipped roof at right angles to the transept roof, with a ground floor west door in the angle to the nave. A more distinct stair turret on the transept's east side stands on brick corbels with a three-sided shaft rising to an octagonal turret with a pyramid cap, located in the angle to a smaller parallel transeptal chapel. This chapel has a south basement door and first floor lancet, with a chamfered south-east corner featuring corbelling at the upper corner and stepped brickwork in the gable. The chapel's east side has four blank panels above and a two-light basement window below. The chancel is octagonal in the German model with an octagonal slate roof and five large lancets recessed in stepped brick surrounds with hoodmoulds in bays divided by angle piers. Corbelling appears under the eaves with deep stepped brickwork below the sills down to a cornice over two-light basement windows. The north transept has a similar parallel east chapel, though the transept gable is simpler and broad with four large lancets and a mid pier. The transept is flush with the north aisle.

The nave has an ashlar four-bay arcade with round columns and pointed moulded arches, with a similar arch of 1894 opening into the north transept. The nave features a four-bay scissor-truss roof with wall-posts on corbels and arched bracing. Similar roofs appear over the aisles. The 1894 addition includes double moulded brick arches to the transepts sprung from corbels on either side and incorporating a central polished granite column, with piercing in the gable above. A larger similar brick arch leads to the sanctuary, sprung from the north from a column shaft on a crocketted canopy-head. The crossing roof is boarded and eight-sided, while the transept roofs resemble the nave roof. A single brick pointed arch from each transept leads to the parallel east chapels. The sanctuary has a boarded steep roof with ribs radiating from a pendant. Pointed arches each side open into transept chapels with brick diaper patterning over. The apse has a marble dado beneath five lancets with moulded brick surrounds and black marble ringed shafts featuring carved angels on capitals. A highly ornate carved stone and marble high altar in the apse has four marble columns with moulded caps and bases, a moulded shelf behind, and a reredos that is an openwork composition of canopies and crocketted finials arranged on two levels in three bays, with the central feature being altogether more lavish with marble shafting and numerous carved angels. A further stone columned altar table has been reset in the crossing. A plain gallery spans the west end of both the nave and aisles.

The stained glass includes five windows in the apse of unknown artist in Baroque style dating to around 1900, depicting from left to right St Illtyd, St Patrick, St David, and St Benedict (the central panel is obscured). The north aisle contains two pairs of windows by an unknown artist in Gothic Revival style from the early 20th century: the first pair shows the Assumption and Ascension, the second St Brigid and St John the Evangelist.

Fittings include Stations of the Cross from the 19th century, probably by Mayer of Munich (the oak frames are lost). An alabaster octagonal font on green marble shafts was presented by the Catholic Young Men's Society in memory of parish members killed in the First World War. A slate memorial in the nave commemorates the men of the parish killed in the First World War, while a brass memorial lists the Benedictine Fathers of the church from 1857 to 1930. A painting in the south transept titled "I Blant Fy Mhlant" (To My Children's Children) by Kevin Sinnott was created for the church's 150th anniversary.