Eglwys St Mair

Cadw's description

Location

On a sloping island site; W end and S side to William Street and E end overlooking George Street.

History

Begun in 1863-6 by William Butterfield on land given by Col Powell of Nanteos to serve the Welsh speaking members of the established church, cost £2,212.

Exterior

Small Victorian early Decorated church; chancel and slightly higher aisled nave with NW porch and W bellcote. Rubble masonry with freestone dressings, banding and gable parapets.

Buttressed E end; 3 light window with hoodmould and stepped cill band, 2 cusped recesses below. Corbelled chimney breast to S side of chancel with stack removed; 2-light window and shouldered doorway to left. N aisle overlaps the chancel to incorporate the vestry with transomed window. 2-light double cusped aisle windows below clerestory of alternating paired lancets and paired lozenge shaped lights. Diagonal buttresses to porch, quatrefoil over boarded doors within. Gabled W front, advanced centre rises to twin arched bellcote; 2-light grouped trefoil headed W window flanked by lancets over boarded door entrance with gable parapet over, formerly to porch ?; 2-light trefoil headed aisle W windows.

Interior

Whitewashed interior. 5-bay nave with plain chamfered arcades and shouldered clerestory openings. Timber trusses with pointed arch windbraces rising from paired corbels below wall plate. Gilded lettering to chancel arch on moulded capitals; 2-bay chancel with similar truss rising from corbelled wall shafts; traceried panelling to roof over altar, Gothic fittings including gilded and painted octagonal font and cusped piscina, patterned reredos. Some stained glass by Alfred Hemming 1903.