Church of Christ Church

Cadw's description

Location

Near the centre of Radyr, just SW of the central crossroads.

History

Begun 1903 to design of G Halliday; nave first used on Easter Day 1904. Chancel, tower and vestry completed 1910 - commemorative tablet for latter displayed in chancel and dedication stone laid by Earl of Plymouth set in E wall. Halliday's designs for interior fittings including choir stalls and screen dated 1910 displayed in parish rooms. Parish Magazine for May 1904 describes opening.

Exterior

Church comprises nave of five bays, chancel, separately gabled NE vestry converted to chapel, SE tower and S porch. Attached to N a suite of parish rooms added later C20. Built of snecked rockfaced stone with ashlar dressings and Welsh slate roof with cruciform finials. Windows of 1, 2 and 3 lights with Perpendicular tracery to main building; angle buttresses with stepped coping. S nave has 4 windows. Chancel has 2 single trefoil headed lights to S and 1 to N; 3-light E window with dedication stone below; similar W window. Low porch has wide pointed arched doorway with multiple roll mouldings, no capitals, raised coping, chunky angle buttresses with offsets; inside, the main S doorway is similar though more pointed. Tower is unbuttressed and has deep crenellated parapet and semi-octagonal turrets to upper storey which has 2-light heavily moulded louvred belfry openings with Perpendicular tracery and splayed sills. Below are paired openings with hoodmoulds to the tower chamber and on ground floor taller single-light windows above a battered plinth; a flight of steps leads up to a pointed arched doorway at NE with basement steps to W. Former vestry now chapel at NE has square headed 3-light side window.

Interior

Interior rendered and painted with exposed ashlar dressings and dark stained open boarded timber roof. Nave roof of 5 bays has king posts with lowered ridge purlin, chancel has waggon roof with gilded floriated bosses and elaborate corbel table. Wide and high multi-moulded pointed chancel arch with 3/4 colonettes and wooden rood screen with slender muntins and vine scroll coving and cresting of close-set crockets. Font at W is an octagonal bowl on short marble piers of 1905. Stone and marble pulpit at NE nave has very decorative canopywork and one figure, c 1912. Chancel and sanctuary have elaborately patterned encaustic tile floors, santuary has 2-sided piscina to S. Wide arches to N and S incorporating moulded bands: that to N leads to a chapel created from former vestry and contains later C20 furnishings. Coloured glass in Art Nouveau motifs here and N nave; stained glass E, W and S.

Reason for designation

Included as an early C20 parish church in prominent position which was the focus for the surrounding comfortable middle-class residential development in the first decades of the century.