25787

 

II*  

Designated  

27/09/2001  

27/09/2001  

Church of St Mary  

 

Monmouthshire  

Mitchel Troy  

Monmouth  

Tregare  

341769  

210250  

 

About 9km WSW of Monmouth, on the W side of a northward bend in the minor road between Dingestow and Raglan  

Religious, Ritual and Funerary  

 

Probably built in the C14; tower added slightly later; restored 1900 by G.E.Halliday.  

A small country church. It is built of sandstone rubble, partly roughly coursed and partly random, has stone slate roofs, and consists of an unbayed nave with a S porch, a small chancel and an added W tower. The tower is square on plan and of 3 undifferentiated stages, with battered but unbuttressed walls and a pyramidal roof. It has no doorway and no other external opening from which it could be entered: just one very small arched lancet to each side of the 1st stage, with little hood moulds; an even smaller chamfered lancet in the N and S sides of the 2nd stage; and small square-headed belfry windows with 2 cusped ogee-headed louvred lights and hoodmoulds. The nave, which is only slightly wider than the tower, has on its S side, offset slightly W, a relatively large open-fronted gabled porch consisting of chunky stone side walls (with inner side benches) carrying an arch-braced timber-framed roof, open to the front and with wavy bargeboards. The inner doorway is chamfered and 2-centred, and turned at the apex to form a diminutive ogee. To the left of the porch is a restored square-headed window of 2 cusped ogee-headed lights; and towards the E end of this side is a large square-headed chamfered mullion window of 3 tall lights, under a hoodmould which has sunk-square stops. In the centre of the N side is a low buttress, to the right of which is a part-restored C14 2-light window arched like the S doorway, with a moulded surround, 2-centred arched lights and a quatrefoil in the head. The E end of this wall breaks out slightly (housing a rood stair) and has a small square-headed window of 2 trefoil lights with hollow spandrels. On a higher level just round the corner of the gable wall is a tiny candle-shaped window (lighting the head of the rood stair). The S side of the chancel has a narrow 2-centred arched priest door, a small rectangular window to the left with diamond-lattice glazing, and a restored window of 2 arched lights to the right. The E gable has a Victorian 2-light Decorated window; and the N side has 2 small chamfered rectangular windows.  

The nave has a C15 or C16 barrel-vaulted plaster ceiling divided into square panels by narrow ribs with small lozenge bosses, and both side walls have moulded and brattished wallplates. At the NE corner is a recess with a quarter-spiral of steps leading to a Tudor-arched doorway to the former rood loft. The chancel arch, which is 2-centred and chamfered, is set immediately behind a highly unusual tall cinquefoil superarch, perhaps designed to frame the rood. At the W end the tower arch is formed partly of the converted C14 W window, which is deeply splayed and has slender keeled shafts. The inside of the C14 window in the N wall matches it in style. The chancel has a C15 or C16 arch-braced single-rafter roof, and on its N wall is a wall monument to John Evans (d.1704), richly carved, with a broken segmental pediment and a foliated apron with a cherub. In the centre of the W end of the nave is a C15 octagonal font, the pedestal with a splayed foot and heavily ribbed and carved (including shields), and the bowl, which is a C19 copy in white stone, surrounded by large interlaced hearts.  

Listed as a small medieval country church of simple architectural character.