3035

 

II  

Designated  

02/05/1980  

28/08/2001  

Church of St John the Evangelist  

 

Newport  

Beechwood  

Newport  

Maindee  

332611  

188443  

N  

On the hillside above the centre of the suburb of Maindee, the W front facing Kensington Place, within a walled grassed enclosure; main entrances with gatepiers at W and SW.  

Religious, Ritual and Funerary  

 

Built by Prichard and Seddon 1859-66 to serve the developing area of Maindee, a suburb of Newport comprising areas of modest terrace housing at river level and grander terraces and detached villas on the hillside. Steeple not extant was designed by J Coates Carter in 1911; photograph of that date shows building without the upper storey of the tower, the building finishing at main roof level. N aisle was added at same date. The church suffered some bomb damage and was more severely damaged by an arsonist in 1949 and subsequently restored. The capitals and chancel arch were designed to have been enriched with foliage moulding which was never carried out and the restoration repeated this unfinished quality.  

Large parish church in Geometric Gothic Revival style. Built of coursed Old Red sandstone rubble with Bath-stone dressings creating a decorative polychrome effect, particularly on window surrounds, voussoirs, quoins and with plentiful banding especially on tower; hoodmoulds with stops, some of which reputedly depict local personalities, and a continuous stepped sill-band. Steeply pitched Welsh slate roof with stone corbels and apex crosses. Wide and elaborate W front with tall and wide tower at SE adjoining S aisle with narrow S porch, nave with W porch and N aisle, the 3 main units with separate pitched roofs of almost the same height and width. Chancel not separate from nave extends to E. Tower is 3-storeyed with crocketed pinnacles and gargoyles at each corner; originally intended to support a spire; blind arcading to parapet, tiered buttresses with offsets at corners and polygonal staircase tower at SW, spurred above a deep battered plinth. Tall paired pointed stone latticed lights to the belfry; very narrow paired lights interrupted by a platband to tower chamber on floor below; tall lower storey with W window. W gable end to nave has a very decorative long window comprising paired lights each with trefoil tracery head, separated by a cusped niche, and a large tracery roundel composed of small roundels set within a cusped star. Projecting W porch has a very steep pitched roof, with blind roundel in apex; wide pointed arched moulded entrance with short columns set on flight of steps, flanked by small gabled buttresses set at right angles; cusped doorway. Large NW window has similar cusped roundel tracery; below is a flat roofed embattled entrance porch to N aisle with door to side. S porch is similar to W. S aisle windows have two slender lights and a cusped tracery roundel; a buttress divides off the E bay. SE window similar to NW. The E window using the same motifs is the most elaborate of all: five lights with a complex tracery design of roundels and cinquefoils. Entrance to remodelled N aisle at NE. N windows are similar to S but hard against boundary.  

Interior has a steeply pitched boarded roof with scissor trusses, painted side panels and grid ventilators. 4-bay N aisle arcade, 3-bay S, with hoodmoulds to the pointed arches, block corbels, bulbous capitals. The N aisle is now divided off to form an enclosed room with low ceiling, scissor truss open roof visible above; S aisle has a high plain W archway with pyramidal buttress adjacent leading to baptistry and to S entrance, timber grid to ceiling; the font by Seddon in Geometric style has a hexagonal bowl on a short stem with pyramidal panels to plinth; door at SW leads to tower. Chancel arch is wide, high and lightly moulded. Chancel has fine stained glass in E and SE windows, the E window originally 1865 by Chance Brothers and Co restored after bomb damage 1952: elaborate iconography incorporates the Ascension, major scenes from Life of Christ, figures of the Evangelists; SE window of 1873 by Samuel Evans has scenes from the life of St John the Evangelist; other windows have plain diamond quarries. Unusual mosaic floor to chancel and coloured encaustic tiles to sanctuary. Aumbry recess to N and wooden sedilia to S. Organ at N by Norman and Beard 1918. Most of the chancel and sanctuary furnishings are in light wood and date from the 1950s restoration.  

Listed as large and dominating mid C19 parish church by well-known S Wales architects in a strongly Geometric style. Group value with The Lawns and Cambrian House.