Parish Church

Cadw's description

Location

The church stands on the E side of the road at the top of the rise from its junction with the A5 Holyhead Road.

History

The church stands the a site of a chapelry of Ysbyty Ifan built in 1766 and consecrated in 1771, known as the Voelas Chapel. It was rebuilt in 1857-9 on the same site to the design of George Gilbert Scott, at the expense of Charles Griffith Wynne of Voelas. It consists of a single cell building but with a S transept, now the organ chamber and vestry, replacing, on the same foundations, the lateral chapel built on to the previous building in 1774 for the Wynne-Finch monuments.

Exterior

Squared snecked stone quarried from behind the church, with Henllan limestone dressings, the S side and W end rendered with stone-chip finish. Slate roofs. Lancet style, with low raking buttresses at the corners. The open S porch has a large chamfered arch, leading to the boarded door with scrolled hinges. Lancet windows throughout, paired at the eastern end of the nave, two widely spaced in the W gable and triple at the E end. Slightly corbelled bell boxing at the W end.

Interior

The nave is broad, with a short narrower chancel. Nave roof of 3 bays; crown post trusses with curved struts, carrying an open rafter roof, ceiled at collar level. Walls plastered, the windows splayed internally. Quarry-tiled floor. The wide chancel arch has one step into the chancel, which also has an open rafter roof, scissor braced. Plastered walls, and interesting patterned stone flooring. The sanctuary is raised a further step, and is panelled to dado height with oak panelling by Charles Nicholson, fixed in 1903, having painted arms on the E wall and a built-in server's seat on the S. Limestone reredos with strapwork cresting, and inlay of red and green marbles. The transept is similarly roofed, and now houses the organ and store.

Glass: contemporary stained glass in the W lancets by Clayton and Bell, and in the E triple lancets by F W Oliphant, 1857 commemorating Major H Wynne, killed at Inkerman. Also glass in the S pair of nave lancets, of 1912 and a N window of 1932 by Sir Ninian Comper.

Fittings: balustered altar rail, and altar with a carved front. Part-octagonal pulpit with a stumpwork hanging, approached by 5 steps. Brass eagle lectern dated 1924. The font at the W end is of compact limestone, a square block cut with trefoil arches, all set on a short column with marble colonnettes at the angles, and set on an octagonal base. Curule pews. Unfixed in the vestry is an C18 marble bowl font on a baluster stem.

Monuments: S wall of chancel: (a) a red sandstone strapwork cartouche to Col Charles Arthur Wynne-Finch, d.1903, by R Davison. In transept (b) central on the S wall, a fine C18 white marble wall monument by Westmacott snr., supported from the floor portraying a seated draped female clasping in her grief a pedestalled urn set against a pyramid, to John Griffith of Cefn Amwlch, Caernarfonshire, d.1794, descendant of Rees ap Tudor, and ancestor of the Wynne Finch family of Voelas (poor condition at May 1998). In the E transept E and W walls, four marble framed pink granite tablets to (c) Charles Wynne Griffith Wynne of Voelas, d.1865, enamelled arms below; (d) Sarah, wife of last, coloured marbles with cabochon semi-precious stones set on the frame, (e) Charles Wynne Finch, d.1874, dark red marble frame, and (f) Jane Finch, d.1811, white marble, the frame removed.

Reason for designation

Included as a modest but competent example of a parish church designed by the office of a leading British Victorian architect.