4435

 

II*  

Designated  

30/03/1951  

26/09/2005  

Church of St Mary  

 

Gwynedd  

Porthmadog  

 

Tremadog  

256261  

340065  

E  

Sited on an eminence in a large churchyard, to the S of the Market Square.  

Religious, Ritual and Funerary  

 

The town of Tremadog owes its existence to the vision and enterprise of William Madocks. Having reclaimed some 1000 acres (404.69 hectares) of marshland in 1800, a small market and post town (on a proposed new mail route from London to Dublin via Porthdinllaen) was planned, with a manufactory (a woollen mill), town hall and market, church chapel, and housing. This was substantially complete by 1811. The Church of St Mary itself dates from 1811, paid for by Madocks. It was a pioneering example of the use of gothic. In aspects of its construction, it also pioneered: the brick spire is rendered in Parker's Roman Cement, an early type of imitation stone which had been patented in 1796. (the brick clay was dug locally). The church was originally provided with box pews and a gallery, with cast-iron traceried windows, and a painted ceiling. In 1895, however, it was extensively reordered: the windows were renewed in stone, the interior was refitted. This work included raising the chancel with new steps: their mosaic inlay was the work of J.C Edwards of Ruabon; the gallery was removed and the organ re-housed in the N transept. At same time, the decoration of the spire was simplified (pre 1900 photographs show a more elaborate scheme), and the ceiling removed. The church was again repaired in 1958, when the roof was renewed and the previously projecting gables of the transepts were simplified. The Church was closed in 1995.  

Church, comprising W tower and spire, nave with shallow transepts and a chancel. Roughly dressed, squared and coursed Moel y Gest granite boulders; freestone dressings to late C19 windows. Slate roofs. Gothic style. 3-stage W tower, with angle buttresses. Entrance to church in arched doorway with voussoirs in W wall and modern outer doors; tower entrance up steps in N wall; 2-light window above (blind recesses to N and S), then moulded cornice before bell stage: this has splayed angles with incised crosses and paired foiled lancets in the principal faces, with clock or matching roundels above them, set below moulded cornice. Embattled parapet, then spire. This is rendered over brick, and has two tiers of lucarnes. 3-bay nave with moulded stone eaves cornice and shallow pitched roof. Windows are paired plate-traceried lights in freestone with voussoirs and hood moulds: blocked remains of lower earlier openings below them. Shallow transepts with close eaved roofs (the result of the 1958 restoration), and similar windows. Lean-to vestry with long porch to E, abutting S transept. Plate traceried E window of 3 lights, also with evidence of its lower predecessor.  

Inner doors at W entrance may be the originals: paired simply traceried doors, with quatrefoils pierced in the mid-rail. Simple interior. Shallow roof with 5 trusses - curved braces to collar, short king posts and struts. No structural division between nave and the short chancel; the only demarcation is given by the late C19 raised steps with mosaic inlay (by J C Edwards of Ruabon). Fittings: simple communion rails, and fine altar and reredos, designed by C R Ashbee and carved by Emile de Vynck, a Belgian carver who was living in Pentrefelin. Commissioned in memory of Randall Casson, agent to the Tremadoc estate between 1896 and 1911, and installed in 1917. Renaissance style, each articulated as 3 panels between pilasters enriched with stylised foliage, urns and vine trails. Inscription in central panel of altar, emblems of passion superimposed on simple shields in flanking panels. Pulpit carved by Constance Greaves of Wern Manor, c 1895, Jacobean style. Bates organ of 1857 in N transept. Stained glass in E window, in memory of John Whitehead Greaves and his wife Ellen, installed in 1899. A richly coloured rendition of the Baptism of Christ. Marble memorial tablet on nave N wall, to John Williams, agent to Madocks; by Spence & Son of Liverpool.  

Listed grade II* as the church provided by William Madocks for his new town of Tremadog; an early essay in the Gothic style which, notwithstanding later modification, retains significant elements of its original C19 character and construction, and forms a strong element in the planned town of Tremadog.