History

Built 1855-7, architect John Norton, for Revd George Thomas. Thomas family were locally important landowners from Llanbradach, George Thomas on the death of his elder brother also becoming squire. He was influenced by the Oxford Movement and the church was formerly more richly furnished and intended to provide a private family chapel. He also had built the nearby family mansion of Ystrad Fawr 1852-7, a successor to Llanbradach. Nearby Vicarage built 1889. Blocked arches on N side possibly suggest an originally planned extension. Newman believes the E section of each transept is an addition; vicar confirms vestry extended early C20.

Exterior

Large parish church. Plan of nave, chancel, NW tower, SW porch and twin transepts at N and S. Built of snecked sandstone with some tooled ashlar dressings including quoins and deep tiled roof with swept eaves. S porch is narrow with very steeply pitched roof, narrow pointed-arched doorway with wide chamfers, chunky mouldings, double doors. S nave has a 4-window range of narrow pointed paired lancets. Paired SE transept gables separated by buttress with offsets have similar roofs to porch, long paired lights with decorative quatrefoil with face stops in apex; SE window of paired lancets. Chancel has deep plinth and a window of 3 cusped lights set back within a moulded surround under a deep hood at E. Matching twin gables to N transepts and a prominent chimney rising from NE frontage; on N transept walls an asymmetrical arrangement of lancets at different levels with apex trefoil to right and narrow cusped arched doorway to left. N nave has 2 wide blank arches, a lancet within each. Tower, unusually sited, has a very decorative belfry storey comprising embattled parapet, corner gargoyles, lombard frieze, surmounted by a pyramidal roof capped with a weather vane; two-storey ringing chamber has heavy louvred 6-leaf roundels and below triple lights with pointed ordered arches and shafts; very narrow lancets to stairs and tower chambers below at 2 levels; tiny shouldered doorway at NW set below a stringcourse and within the high battered plinth, tall pilaster corner buttresses reach to belfry level. NW corner of nave has high lancets and a trefoil-headed doorway below. W front, unexpectedly deep because of falling ground, has triple lancets with quatrefoils above and at basement level a range of 5 small arched lights.

Interior

Interior is rendered with exposed dressings. Nave roof is panelled and undivided into bays. N side has the wide blind/blocked arches with infilled lancets seen outside. Chancel arch is pointed with heavy mouldings, slender shaft to outer orders and corbel to inner. Unusual filigree brass pulpit of 1888 adjacent to N; square font. At E nave, the archways to the transepts do not match. Wide 4-centred arch to S, supported by fluted corbels, leads to a Lady Chapel formed from the two units, each with separate wooden roof divided by a deep cross beam; original high altar was moved here. To N the transept units are occupied by the organ chamber to W and a sacristy and vestry to E. Chancel sanctuary has a decorative tiled floor and on E wall an unusually lettered brass monument to Revd George Thomas, founder, died 1860, an elaborate 3-bay brass monument to the Thomas family, and other brasses to members of the family, traditionally from Llanbradach, including a further group on W side of chancel arch. Chancel panelling made by woodwork master at local school mid C20. Stained glass: at W probably contemporary with building in early French Gothic style; other similar glass in nave; SE lancets by Lavers and Barraud; E window by Henry Holiday made by Powell's.

Reasons for Listing

Listed for its architectural interest as an unusually planned and carefully detailed Gothic church by John Norton.

External Links

• Cadwr Listing
• Wikidata Q29502474

External links are from the relevant listing authority and, where applicable, Wikidata. Wikidata IDs may be related buildings as well as this specific building. If you want to add or update a link, you will need to do so by editing the Wikidata entry.

Recommended Books

• 
  Yorkshire: York and the East Riding (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Bedfordshire, Huntingdonshire, and Peterborough (Pevsner Architectural Guides): Written by Charles O'Brien, 2014 Edition, Publisher: Yale University Press [Hardcover]
• 
  A Buying and Owning a Listed Building: A Brief Guide
• 
  London 3: North West: North West v. 3 (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Old House Care and Repair
• 
  Suffolk: West: The Buildings of England (Pevsner Architectural Guides) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)