22930

 

II  

Designated  

09/03/2000  

09/03/2000  

Church of St Llechid  

 

Gwynedd  

Llanllechid  

Bangor  

Llanllechid  

262192  

368689  

 

Located in village in long rectangular churchyard boarded by rubblestone wall with stone-on-edge coping; entrance to north-east has circular piers and spiked iron gates, from which a long yew avenue leads to the church.  

Religious, Ritual and Funerary  

 

Built in 1844 by the diocesan architect, Henry Kennedy to replace the old church, the site of which lies to the east in the present churchyard. Described by Samuel Lewis in 1811 as "a long ancient edifice, consisting of a nave and chancel, with a small chapel or oratory on the south side", the old church was mainly of late C15 or early C16 date. The present building was not admired by architectural critics at the time of its erection, The Ecclesiologist stating that "The western bellcote is Italian, not Norman. This comes of the same architects essaying church architecture who deal in the revived-pagan". The arch-way in the west wall of the porch is claimed to be the main doorway of the old church, reused in its present position.  

Loosely Lombardic Romanesque style comprising nave, chancel, west bellcote, south porch and north vestry. Roughly coursed rubblestone blocks with tooled ashlar dressings, continuous chamfered plinth and cill band; steep-pitched slate roofs with coped verges and strong moulded cornices. Nave buttressed in 5 bays with windows to 4 eastern bays on north and to 3 eastern bays on south, all round-arched with carved capitals to recessed heads; octagonal chimney stack with scalloped top to east gable. West wall has projecting stepped bellcote containing single bell, dated 1752, with broad recessed round-headed window to ground stage flanked by narrower recessed round-headed windows; 4-light window above with crude intersecting lancet tracery under square-headed canopy with blind rectangular slit above. Short chancel with nook-shafts to prominent corner buttresses has round-headed east window with intersecting lancet tracery in 3 lights; small narrow round-headed window above with plain cross to gable; small projection (access to pulpit- see Interior) on south side; lean-to north vestry in angle with nave has late C20 panelled door approached by straight-flight steps on north and recessed round-headed window to east. Wide gabled south porch at west end of nave with plain cross to apex and narrow chamfered rectangular windows to sides has round-headed outer arch in 3 orders, inner with simply carved capitals; double doors with superscribed date "MDCCCXLIV" above and elaborate ironwork tympanum; buttress immediately to east of porch carried up as chimney; straight-flight steps directly to west lead down to round-headed arch-ways in south wall of nave and west wall of porch (boiler house).  

Largely unaltered and rather quirky interior of almost basilican character. Wide aisleless nave has arch-braced roof in 5 bays with intermediary trusses, the principal trusses resting on curious and substantial cushion-like stone corbels. West wall of painted brick, in front of which is panelled west gallery supported on 2 circular columns with block capitals to centre and plain responds at sides; elegant, gently sweeping staircase against west wall has tapering circular newels and slender octagonal balusters to carved treads. Round-headed chancel arch in 2 orders has scalloped capitals to half-octagonal responds, beyond which are 3 steps with a further 2 steps to the sanctuary, both chancel and sanctuary with encaustic tiled floors. Fittings and furnishings: complete set of early Victorian pews to nave; hexagonal neo-Norman polished slate pulpit on slender pedestal with emblems of the 4 evangelists to sunken round-arched panels is approached through round-headed doorway in south wall of chancel and another in east wall of nave; recut octagonal font with C18 cover; eagle lectern on circular shaft with cable decoration; altar rails with intersecting Norman tracery and blind round-headed arcading (also in timber) as reredos; Victorian stained glass east window flanked by painted round-arched panels reciting the Creed and Ten Commandments (in Welsh). Monuments: wall tablet on nave south wall in memory of Elisa Wynn Coytmor (d.1808), buried in the Grosvenor Chapel of St George's Church, Hanover Square, London, erected by her husband, Revd. William Wynn Coytmor; plain tablet on north wall to Richard Morris Griffith (d.1845); First World War memorial also on this wall.  

Included as a typically idiosyncratic early church of Henry Kennedy, architect to the diocese of Bangor from the 1840s until his retirement in 1894. Llanllechid is one of his most distinctive buildings and shows him working in the neo-Norman style favoured during the earlier part of his career.