10424

 

II  

Designated  

11/03/1992  

30/05/2024  

Catholic Church of Our Lady of Mount Carmel & Attached Presbytery  

 

Ceredigion  

Lampeter  

Lampeter  

 

257472  

248253  

N  

Situated on rising ground above W end of Bryn Road, overlooking triangular green opposite Shiloh Presbyterian Chapel.  

Religious, Ritual and Funerary  

 

The Catholic church at Lampeter was a Carmelite foundation, built under the auspices of Fr Malachy Lynch, the head of the Carmelite community at Aberystwyth. The church and were designed by the London architect Thomas Henry Birchall Scott (who was in partnership with his son Thomas G Birchall Scott from 1928), and constructed 1939-40. The church and its fitting out was the fruit of a partnership of client, architect and Catholic artists and craftsmen and women. Scott was one of the founders of the Guild of Catholic Artists and Craftsmen, some of whose members made furnishings for the church. The three painted lunettes are by Mary Malburn. The carved stone reredos panel is by P J Lindsey Clarke, according to Welsh Gazette 18 July 1940, where the design is illustrated with a roof-slope bellcote (not apparently built). Much of the internal woodworking, including the Stations of the Cross and the statues flanking the sanctuary arch is by Jaroslav Krechler. A 1941 account of the church by Father Malachy Lynch O. Carm. states that the proportions were taken from the Theatre at Garthewin, Llanfair Talhaearn, Clwyd, converted in 1938 from a barn by T S Tait, architect, which also has lunettes over the main brick arches. Originally with chairs in the nave, later replaced with benches.  

Simple whitewashed roughcast group of Church and Presbytery with grey-green slate roofs; the gabled church with round-arched windows comes forward on right, with neo-Georgian house attached to left. The Church is of exemplary simplicity externally, steep-roofed with nave, chancel and 3-sided apse, 3 windows to nave E side, 3 and door to W, the windows arched with red tile sills and rectangular leaded panes. Apse has 2 smaller windows to canted sides. S front has centrepiece slightly advanced with slates continued over and iron cross finial. Arched doorway in three-step surround with very slightly raised arched hoodmould. Della Robbia style ceramic plaque in lunette. Above, two glazed loops each side of wrought iron keys of St Peter, and smaller vent loop in gable apex above. Each side of centrepiece are small narrow square-headed windows under slightly raised arched hoodmoulds. W side door is within single storey link to house, with broad open arch to S. The Presbytery has steep hipped roof, rendered flat-capped stack on W roof-slope, and 2-storey, 4-window front elevation of small-paned metal casements with red tile sills and shutters to outer windows. Paired casements to outer windows, single narrow light each floor to right of centre, arched doorway with metal French windows to left of centre, triple casement over. Della Robbia plaque in lunette and slightly raised arched hoodmould, as on church. Main door is on E side, in linking porch. To left of house, a roughcast garden wall with arched doorway links to NE corner of small outbuilding with three-quarter hipped gables, open E end and S side casement.  

Interior contrasts complex spatial divisions and simple building materials; the chancel and apse are divided off by identical cross walls with broad arches and echoing open lunettes above which give complex views of the roof timbers. Walls are of sand coloured brick with pale grey brick dressings, the chancel and sanctuary arches being of grey brick, as also the lunette surrounds above; the nave window surrounds are stepped, the inner surround being of grey, while the sanctuary wall is semi-circular and entirely of grey brick. Double purlin roofs with bolted nave roofs trusses boarding behind rafters. S end gallery over brick-fronted inner porch with room each side, that E being baptistery. Door to nave, arched with canvas painted lunette, those each side broader and arched with wrought iron screens. Door from nave to presbytery is similar arched with painted canvas lunette.  

Included for its special architectural interest as a well-designed and harmonious complex of buildings, traditional in inspiration and materials, and significant for its special historic interest as one of the best examples of mid-C20 churches in west Wales. Group value with other prominently sited buildings on E side of Church Street.