19305

 

II  

Designated  

05/02/1998  

05/02/1998  

Church of St Tecla  

 

Denbighshire  

Llandegla  

Ruthin  

Llandegla  

319597  

352438  

 

In the centre of the village of Llandegla, in a walled and gated churchyard.  

Religious, Ritual and Funerary  

 

During the C19 the ownership of the Bodidris estate passed to the Williams family of Bodelwyddan Castle who became local benefactors. Built in 1866, the Gothic Revival church at Llandegla was paid for by Margaret, Lady Willoughby de Broke, sister of Sir Hugh Williams. The architect was almost certainly John Gibson, who had previously designed the famous estate church at Bodelwyddan.  

Rubble stone with slate roof and stone gable copings. Decorated style. Nave and chancel under one roof, with W bellcote. Porch to S has steeply pitched gabled roof with stone coping; plain buttresses at the junction with the nave are linked to set-back buttresses either side of entrance by string courses, which also run above the moulded plinth. Pointed-arched entrance doorway with dripmould; round-lobed trefoil window to upper gable. Diagonally boarded door with decorative cast iron strap hinge. To right of porch, S front has three two-light trefoil headed windows with tracery of two long-lobed trefoils and a quatrefoil. Window heads have hoodmoulds, label stops enriched by floral decoration. E gable has big three-light trefoil-headed window with, most unusually, trefoils also at base; tracery in Decorated style with two trefoils, two multifoils and three quatrefoils. Above the E window is another small quatrefoil in the upper gable, and at the apex an iron cross. N side: gabled vestry to W with two-light mullion window in gable-end, side entrance has doorway with shouldered arch in ashlar, diagonally boarded door. Vestry chimney has raking cap and projects into nave roof. To right, three pointed arched windows as before. W elevation has window of three trefoiled lights with tracery of C19 decorated form including a circle enclosing three trefoils. Above a trefoil in the upper gable. Bellcote has raking offsets, four-centred arched bell opening and fleur-de-lys shaped coping.  

Nave roof of 5 bays; deep-arched collar trusses with trefoil high above collar, trusses spring from heavily moulded corbels, with ashlar pieces at wall-plate level. Big plain Gothic arch encloses E window, with panelled reredos screen below. Simple close-boarded pews with shaped ends. Brass altar rail with spiral-twist columns and branched upper scroll supports. Pulpit has octagonal wooden drum, tapered at stem, the panels richly carved with blind tracery consisting of pairs of cinquefoil headed arches with quatrefoils above. Very fine late-medieval brass chandelier: two tiers of branches, one of four, one of eight stems decorated with swirling foliage; crowned by figure of Virgin Mary, below a beast head with ring. Fine late-medieval font with pronounced roll mouldings: octagonal bowl with relief decoration of sacred and abstract symbols in panels springs from waisted octagonal stem on C19 square plinth. Stained glass: E window of 1800 by Francis Eginton (originally part of a bigger window brought from St Asaph Cathedral); Christ in vibrant red robe contemplates a vision of the future; blue robed angel with chalice above, cherubs with Instruments of the Passion either side. N nave has mid-C20 2-light window of St George and St Michael (1939-45 war memorial to Glyn Price and Frank Campbell Jones).  

A well-proportioned Gothic Revival church, incorporating interior features of very special interest, set in a prominent location in Llandegla village.