20099

 

II  

Designated  

02/07/1998  

02/07/1998  

St John's Church  

 

Conwy  

Betws Yn Rhos  

Abergele  

Trofarth  

285743  

371823  

 

Located towards the southern boundary of the community on the N side of an unclassified road running NE from Trofarth towards Dolwen; set back from the road in its own walled churchyard.  

Religious, Ritual and Funerary  

 

Modest lancet style church designed in 1873 by Sir Gilbert Scott, architect of London. A small vestry was added to the NE in 1899 as part of a restoration carried out in memory of Major General E W L Wynne of Coed Coch to the designs of Douglas and Minshull, architects of Chester.  

Small, unassuming church in simple lancet style. Of local rubble construction on a chamfered plinth with sandstone dressings; original slate roof with decorative Westmoreland slate chevron and banding patterning, in C15 Burgundian manner. Slab-coped gable parapets with gable cross at the E end. Towards the W end is a belfry with slated fleche and simple iron cross-vane; deep feathered eaves to this, and pointed-arched bell openings with wooden slatting. The S side has a single-storey gabled porch to L with pointed-arched entrance and broach stopped-chamfering; quarry-tiled porch floor (yellow and red counter-changed) and an inner entrance as before, with boarded door and simple ironwork. Pointed-arched, leaded lancets to S and N sides, 4 to the latter and 3 to the former, with 2-stage stepped buttresses dividing the bays; chamfered reveals. Tall pointed-arched W window with stepped buttresses to the sides. The chancel is lower and narrower than the nave and has stepped buttresses as before; simply-moulded stringcourse returned onto the sides and stepped up under the E window. Three-light pointed-arched tracery E window with simple cusping and comprising 3 lancets with 2 quatrefoil occuli. Adjoining the chancel to the N is the vestry extension. This has a single-light arched window to the E and a triple-arched window to the N; to the R of the latter is a plain boiler-room entrance with recessed (fragmentary) boarded door and stopped-chamfered lintel. In the roof angle between the vestry and the N side of the nave is a plain chimney with cornice.  

Four-bay aisle-less nave with simple X-framed trusses, arched-braced onto shaped stone wall corbels. The interior walls have a facing of knapped limestone (in imitation of knapped flint), an alteration of 1899. Plain red tiled pavement to the centre flanked by simple fixed pine pews. Simple octagonal limestone font on an octagonal shaft with square, chamfered base; carved cross in an oculus to one face of the bowl. Octagonal oak pulpit with broach-stopped chamfered reveals to relief-carved panels in 2 tiers; moulded cornice with foliated bosses. The chancel has been brought forward by one bay in the 1899 remodelling. It has a 7-bay screen in simple Perpendicular style with panelled dado and open upper section; depressed ogee tracery heads and crenellated brattishing to beam, with central surmounting cross. Stopped-chamfered, pointed-arched chancel arch springing from abaci corbelled-out from the soffit. The roof has plain clustered trusses and the walls are faced with yellow brick. Simple polychromed tiles to stepped-up chancel and sanctuary, the latter with simple altar rails (the central section missing), with cusped open quatrefoil decoration to lower sections. Plain panelled oak dado with tripartite Perpendicular reredos. This has crenellated brattishing and open tracery decoration to the centre with blind tracery below. The central panel has a polychromed Last Supper relief cast, while the flanking panels have painted depictions of scroll-bearing angels in Arts and Crafts style. Pointed arch to vestry addition at N, with three-quarter oak panelled screen dividing it from the chancel. This has a doorway at the L and a 4-part open arcaded upper section with segmental arches and Jacobean-style turned baluster-columns. Good figurative stained glass E window with figurative panels (SS John the Baptist, David and the Evangelist) and grisaille backgrounds. On the W wall is a simple marble dedication tablet with a pedimented sandstone surround. This records the restoration of the church in 1899 in memory of Major General E W L Wynne of Coed Coch.  

Listed for its special interest as a church commission by a highly important Victorian architect.