Church of the Resurrection

Cadw's description

Location

In the centre of Grand Avenue on the corner with Ty Coch Road.

History

Foundation stone laid on 24 January 1934. Architect Thomas Roderick of Aberdare. The church is based on the Byzantine style of the church of the Community of the Resurrection, Mirfield (West Yorkshire), by Walter Tapper, itself based on Ravenna originals. The church is externally unaltered; internally only some of the fittings have been changed (in the 1960s).

Exterior

The Church is built in red-brown brick; tiled roofs. Neo-Byzantine style. Nave, aisles, transepts, low octagonal tower, polygonal east and west ends. Octagonal tower with two windows to each face. Four bay nave with paired windows in each bay; aisles with doors in west ends, lean-to roofs to aisles. Polygonal east end with window to each facet. At west end, window of five narrow lights above polygonal bay with three windows facing west; entrance door with recessed orders to each aisle end. Gabled transepts with large round windows; lower blocks on south side, link to church hall to north.

Interior

Rendered and painted throughout. Spacious interior on a Latin cross plan; aisled nave with low aisles, short transepts, dome over the crossing, apsed chancel. Western narthex with three semicircular arches, smaller flanking larger, plain 5-light window above. Four bay nave with paired arch headed clerestorey lights, single lights to the aisles. Square piers with pilasters rising to carry the tunnel vaulted roofs; semicircular arcade. Transepts lit by circular windows. Hemispherical dome carried on squinches; this is lit by sixteen small windows. Chancel lit by paired clerestorey lights on either side. Apse lit by five arched lights with coloured glass, Annunciation, Crucifixion, Resurrection, Ascension, Pentecost, by Francis Spear (1947). These are above the altar with tester over. Perpendicular style pulpit with tester. Some original light fittings in the transepts, the rest of the decorative metalwork dates from the 1960s.

Reason for designation

Included as a well-designed 1930s church, a rare example of a revival of an unusual historical style that retains its character.