Church Heritage Cymru 5799

A Gothic Revival church featuring intricate and distinctive carving and craftsmanship in stone and other materials, built in 1892-94 to the design of the architect George E Halliday. Halliday was able to luxuriate in the chance of a lifetime as funds were seemingly limitless.  Although replacing an older church, perhaps of the C13, which was said to be exceedingly plain, the new building was thought of as a restoration, and stands on the older foundations. Of the earlier building the stones of the chancel arch and one roof truss in the chancel are the principal items retained in Halliday's design. The work was commissioned by Miss Olive Talbot of Penrice, the sister of the patroness. Miss Talbot was a benefactress who funded a considerable amount of Anglican church restoration or building in Gower in the late C19. Her monogram appears at the head of the west window. The restoration of St Nicholas church cost about £2000. Miss Talbot died at her home in London before its completion, but not before seeing the stonework of the reredos which had been brought there and assembled for her inspection. The architect signed his work on the hinges of the nave and vestry doors. The craftsmanship in stone is by William Clarke of Llandaff, who acted also as contractor. The metalwork is by Singer of Frome and by Morgan and Williams of Cardiff, Mr Morgan being the blacksmith. The stiff-leaf style of the architectural enrichment is enlivened with miniature representations of birds and other animals, generally juvenile. Many of the human heads in the carved stonework are thought to be portraits; an angel corbel at the north east of the chancel is a portrait of the architect's daughter.  Packed into this small church are 'many miniaturised  versions of features familiar from the great churches of the mid C13. 

References

Cadw Listings Notice

Buildings of Wales – Glamorgan 2001

Church Quinquennial Inspection Reports

A nave and chancel with a south porch and a vestry to the north.  The walls are constructed from a variety of stone: rock faced pink conglomerate and grey millstone grit with the dressings in the subdued green of Quarella sandstone, the west wall is in Old Red Sandstones and Carboniferous Limestones (pale grey reef limestone with ooliths).  The ashlar quoins are of Sutton Stone.  The multi-arched entrance porch is made from beautifully carved Quarella sandstone with bright red sandstone pillars, most probably from the Forest of Dean.  The inner arches of the porch are also multi shafted alternately grey and pink with the multiple moulded arches enriched with stiff leaf.  There is a blue green slate roof.  The whole building has an Early English style and is a prime example of a late C19 masterpiece.

References

Cadw Listings Notice

Buildings of Wales – Glamorgan 2001

Church Quinquennial Inspection Reports

Welsh Stone Forum National Museum of Wales

The excellence of the building as seen from the outside is continued into the nave and enhanced into the chancel.  The range of stones used is surprising: the nave floor is a local polished limestone, white Italian marble, and red and black Devonshire marble; the steps up to the altar  and  the floor of the sanctuary are red Numidium marble from Syria.  The windows are surrounded by pink alabaster interspersed with columns of green Connemara marble and red crinoidal limestoes from either Devon or Cork.  Sutton stone is to be found in the base of the crossing arch.  Beautifully and intrically carved Quarella Standstones are to be found throughout the  church.  A large black  limestone wall monument  made by P Rogers of Swansea is supported by blocks of Mumbles marble (this firm used the black Mumbles marble widely throughout the Swansea area to support monuments).

The font is made from a travetine or turfa stone probably coming from a local cave, it was recovered from the earlier church and placed on a new plinth, having been found in the floor of the earlier building.  It is unusual in not being not being made from  a Dundry Stone which would have been the expectation.

An alabaster reredos incorporates figures carved in white marble, stained glass and side silk drapes hung on metal brackets.  The central carved figures are the Virgin and Child, with angels and prophets.  In front of it is a  plainly carved altar standing on a white marble podium and it is an integrated part of the reredos.  There are timber communion rails.

Being (re)built at the time of the Tractarian(Oxford) movement the pulpit is entered through its own opening in the Chancel arch, coming from the priest's carved stall in the chancel, the opening having miniaturised vaulting.  The puplit itself is carved pulpit  with alabaster figures of the three great Anglo-Catholic preachers, Keble, Liddon and Pusey in panels.  The chancel arch itself has traces of a fresco.

Within the nave  is a brass eagle lectern.  The prayer desk and pews are in teak, the pew ends are carved with flowers and animals and the latter intricately carved with fish and pelican decorations.

The roof of the nave dominates the scene, in enriched oak with high collar beams, arch braces carried below the carved cornices to carved stone corbels, two rows of purlins and two stages of wind braces with carved bosses.  The chancel roof is also massively timbered in oak, with angels on the cornices.  There is a C14 truss from the earlier chancel, it has been repositioned against the east face of the chancel wall.

The bell is from the earlier church dated  1518 and has a cast inscription in Dutch 'Gerit van Wou, Holland' (which woud seem to be the persons's name and country.)

The stained glass was designed by Halliday and made by Burlison & Grylls of London largely dated 1894. The architect's drawings for the east window have been preserved, and in the representation of the 'Crucifixion with the Virgin Mary' the skull of the name Golgotha shown in the drawings has been omitted from the window. In the north wall of the sanctuary is  'St Timothy'.  'Three Seraphims' are in the south wall of the chancel, opposite is ' St John the Baptist'  In the north wall of the nave are 'The Sweet Psalmists' and in the opposite wall is 'Christ Blessing the Children Brought by their Mothers' and 'Angel with Child', the west window is of  'St Nicholas'.

Unusually the vestry is accorded respect, its doorway is a carved masterwork, with vesicas in the hollow of the arch mouldings featuring the Fathers of the Western Church on one side with the fathers of the eastern Church on the other.  The architct's monogram is punched into the hinges.  The whole thing is reminicent of the Prior's Door in Norwich Cathedral.

The craftsmanship in stone is by William Clarke of Llandaff, who acted also as contractor. The metalwork is by Singer of Frome and by Morgan and Williams of Cardiff, Mr Morgan being the blacksmith

References

Cadw Listings Notice

Buildings of Wales – Glamorgan 2001

Church Quinquennial Inspection Reports

Welsh Stone Forum National Museum of Wales

Stained Glass in Wales