Survey Data
Reg No
20903420
Rating
Regional
Categories of Special Interest
Architectural, Artistic, Historical, Social
Original Use
Church/chapel
In Use As
Church/chapel
Date
1880 - 1885
Coordinates
172702, 98979
Date Recorded
30/10/2006
Date Updated
--/--/--
Description
Freestanding church, built 1881, comprising four-bay nave, single-bay chancel, porch and vestry to south side of chancel, and two-stage bell tower to north side of chancel, with side chapel to ground floor. Pitched slate roofs with banding of fish-scale pattern slates, cut limestone eaves brackets and cast-iron rainwater goods. Pyramidal slate roof to tower, with cut limestone eaves brackets, band of fish-scale pattern slates and decorative iron finial. Snecked dressed limestone walls, tower having more finely dressed snecked limestone to bottom stage and snecked ashlar to upper stage, all walls having dressed limestone quoins and copings, cut limeston eaves brackets, chamfered cut limestone dressings to window and door openings. Corner buttresses to west end of nave and east end of chancel, with base batter to porch and vestry. Lancet windows to nave, with leaded windows and some painted glass. Double lancet to west gable of nave, with quatrefoil above. Lancet and square-headed window openings to vestry. Pointed arch triple-light east window with reticulated tracery and stained glass. Tower has pointed-arch window openings, with timber louvers to top stage and leaded glazing to bottom stage. Pointed-arch entrance doorways to porch and vestry, with timber battened doors having decorative cast-iron strap hinges and limestone threshold and step. Doorways into vestry and into nave proper set into triangular-headed recesses, that into nave having carved timber surround to inner side with crocketed finials and shield motif and supported on timber clustered colonettes. Similar freestanding timber sedilia in chancel. Exposed timber scissors truss roof. Timber wainscoting to nave and vestry. Timber pews to nave and carved timber pulpit to chancel. Render hood-moulding to inner side of east window, and moulded render surround and imposts to chancel arch, latter springing from render corbels. Marble plaques to nave. Church located in graveyard with mature woodland set on high ground overlooking River Blackwater.
Appraisal
This is a modest scaled, but elegant example of a late nineteenth-century Church of Ireland church. It was designed by W.H. Hill, re-using cut stone from Bridgetown Abbey and replacing an earlier church on the site that was built in 1774. The church's appeal is enhanced by its location in a graveyard with mature planting on elevated ground overlooking the River Blackwater. The church is built with a modest selection of material to great effect, such as cut limestone, patterned slates, stained glass and carved timber work. The church has been well maintained and retains all its original features including the leaded and stained-glass windows, carved timber pews and wainscoting, open trussed roof. The carved timber door surround and sedilia are accomplished pieces of decorative work in wood.