St Woolos' Cathedral

St Woolos' Cathedral is a Grade I listed building with an unusual layout that includes a west tower connected to the nave by the Chapel of St Mary, a south porch, and a large chancel with vestries at right angles to the north and a recent hall beyond. The structure is built from red-brown stone with pale ashlar dressings and generally features tiled roofs. The crenellated tower has stepped diagonal buttresses and two-light square-headed windows at the bell stage. On the west side, there is a damaged statue in a niche, a single-light window below the statue, and another two-light square-headed window. Below this, there is a three-light Perpendicular window and a Gothic doorway. St Mary’s Chapel has three windows, while the nave windows are broad Perpendicular style dating from the 19th century. The large chancel is designed in a free 20th-century Gothic style.

To the north of the chancel, there is a vestry with square-headed mullioned windows, and stepped down from this is a hall with lancet windows. The tower features part-glazed Gothic doors leading to St Mary’s Chapel, which has three windows on each side and a square window on the south side with tracery from the room above the former porch. The chapel has an arch-braced roof and a font that incorporates Norman fragments. There is a niche on the north side with a mutilated monument to John Morgan of Tredegar, who died in 1491. The cathedral also contains 20th-century stained glass in the lancets from St Luke’s, Bridge Street, Newport.

The Norman archway leading to the nave incorporates Roman columns from Caerleon, with re-cut Corinthian capitals, and a Norman window above. The nave is Norman with five bays and scallop capitals, and the clerestorey windows now open onto the aisles. The eastern bay of the nave features a Gothic arch leading to the organ chamber on the north side and a segmental arch leading to a chapel on the south side, with a tall Gothic arch to the aisle. There is a rood doorway above. At the west end of the south aisle, there is a tomb of Sir Walter Herbert, who died in 1568, along with early 20th-century stained glass depicting Welsh saints and a 15th-century piscina. The nave and aisles have arch-braced roofs, and the mid-20th-century chancel is in a free Gothic style, featuring a so-called "Leper’s window," which is a small re-set Perpendicular window on the north side.