20300

 

II  

Designated  

21/08/1998  

21/08/1998  

Church of St Michael  

 

Powys  

Llangors  

 

Cathedine  

314363  

225178  

 

Stands above the SE bank of Llangorse Lake and just below the main road between Bwlch and Llangors in a steeply sloping churchyard bordered to E by a stone wall with railings and gatepiers.  

Religious, Ritual and Funerary  

 

All early maps show a church here including Map of Llangorse Lake of 1584 and Jones History of Brecknockshire provides some details, but the chancel and large N tower were built in 1868 by E H Martineau and the nave rebuilt 1894, so only earlier monuments in churchyard and just possibly the batter of W wall indicate a pre-Victorian origin. Connections with nearby Treholford, home of part of the Gwynne Holford family who also owned the Buckland Estate nearby at Talybont, also a large area of land round the S part of Llangorse Lake including Ty Mawr; the Estate was sold 1919.  

Small church, with large N tower, in Early Gothic Revival style. Of coursed or snecked rockfaced sandstone with ashlar dressings; part Welsh slate part tile roof with cruciform ashlar apex finials and decorative ridge tiles. Plan of nave, S porch, smaller lower chancel, large N tower attached at junction of nave and chancel. Tower has tall pyramidal roof of fishscale slates; ringing chamber has large paired pointed lights with heavy slate louvres under a relieving arch with cruciform vent; below is an offset ashlar string course; 2 small lancets to faces of tower chamber; at NW a 5-sided staircase turret with lancets and lead pyramidal roof, weathercoursing possibly to former chapel roof with fragmentary wall below; ground floor has large shouldered doorway in E wall under a pointed relieving arch, small W doorway; battered plinth with ashlar offset. Chancel has large ashlar kneelers and eaves course and large roughly dressed quoins; very steep pitched roof of small tiles; E window of 3 lights with Decorated tracery; lancets to N and S. Nave has slate roof, deep buttresses at E end with deep stepped offset; lancet windows; tall chimney at NE. Porch has heavy ashlar coping ending in decorative kneelers; chamfered pointed arched S door with block labels to hoodmould; inner door pointed arched doorway with rockfaced voussoirs; black and red quarry tile floor.  

Interior nave is plain; C13 font is a plain bowl on a low stem and has an old cover; some monuments from former church re-erected. Chancel arch is of 2 orders with foliage stops, the piers dying back into the wall. Chancel roof of 3 bays is arch-braced supported on large corbels; stained glass E window to Gwynne Holford d Buckland 1859, important local landowning family; SE window by Mayer of Munich; 4 centred arched door to tower NE.  

Listed as a strikingly sited C19 church having historical associations with the area.