3113

 

II  

Designated  

02/07/1962  

29/05/1997  

Church of St. Cadoc  

 

Torfaen  

Trevethin  

Pontypool  

Trevethin  

328388  

202014  

N  

On the north side of Penygarn Road to the east of the Church Avenue entrance to Trevethin estate, standing in the south west corner of a roughly rectangular churchyard.  

Religious, Ritual and Funerary  

 

St Cadoc's is the medieval parish church of Trevethin and is the mother church of Pontypool. Only the west tower survives of the medieval building and that dates from the early C16 with possible C18 refacing, and it is said to have been heightened by six feet in 1846. The body of the church was in so decayed a state that full rebuilding was recommended by the Diocesan Architect T H Wyatt of Wyatt and Brandon in 1845. A letter survives from him explaining what he proposed (15/09/1845), and the surviving building suggests that the proposals were fully implemented. 50% more accommodation for the burgeoning population of Pontypool was required and this was achieved by reusing the foundations of the north wall but moving the south wall some three feet out. Wyatt said that this would cost some £1480, plus £400 if the south transept was built, which it was. The new building was consecrated 08/07/1847. Services continued to be held in Welsh until 1890, the English speaking congregation having built their own church in central Pontypool in 1821 (qv. St. James's Church, Hanbury Road, Pontymoile). The War Memorial Chapel in the south transept was designed by Gerald Cogswell in 1923.  

The Victorian body of the church is built of rock faced squared pink limestone blocks with greyish sandstone dressings, the late medieval tower is of pink near ashlar limestone. The roofs are of Welsh slate with lead to the tower. Nave with north aisle and south porch, north and south transepts, chancel with north vestry, west tower. The church is in a Perpendicular style to match the existing tower, but some of the windows are Decorated as if to replicate what was there before, including the main west one in the tower which is a Victorian alteration. The south side of the church has a two-light window with flat drip, the gabled south porch and two 2-light windows with cusped lights and arched heads with Perpendicular tracery. Continuous cill band round the south side of the church. The transept and chancel have three-light windows, while the north transept has two 2-light with a roundel over and the north aisle three 2-light all as before. There is a gable cross on the east wall of the chancel and the south transept. Stepped buttresses on all corners and between the windows on the north and south walls. The tower has some classical detailing, including the west door, and it is suggested that it was refaced in the C18 as well as altered in the C19. Four stages with string couses between; west door, blind, two-light west window, belfry louvres, string, castellated parapet. The top six feet and the castellations are supposed to have been added in 1846, certainly the stone appears a different colour. Taller square stair turret on the north wall topped by weathercock.  

The interior of the church is Perpendicular in style with a three bay arcade of octagonal piers and a double pier between the north aisle and the transept. The chancel arch is Transitional style. There are galleries in the north aisle and at the west end of the nave, which once held an organ. The latter has a pierced timber front. Hammerbeam nave roof of five trusses, and a three bay arch-braced collar beam roof to the chancel. The north transept is the Hanbury of Pontypool Park family pew with associated monuments. The south transept is the Memorial Chapel of the 2nd battalion, the Monmouthshire Regiment. This was altered for the purpose in 1923. The pews date from the 1845 rebuilding, but poppyheads were added in the 1890's. The other fittings and much of the glass is Victorian; the best of which are the tower window with King David and Saint Cecilia, which dates from 1888, and the east window which commemmorates the 176 dead of the Llanerch Colliery explosion in 1890, some of whom are buried in the churchyard. The monuments include some which survive from the previous building. Seven C18 wall memorials in the north gallery including one to William Read, Physician, died 1769. 'Here underneath in silent slumber lies Read the Physician pious, meek and wise In faith and patience, and in hope who ran His steady race a friend to God and man' There are a further nine memorials from the C18 and early C19 on the south wall. There is also a monument to Molly Ann Hanbury Leigh, died 1846, and in the family pew a good one with marble bust in the Rysbrack manner to John Hanbury, died 1734; and another to Capel Hanbury Leigh, died 1861. The tower contains a peal of eight bells dating from 1888. The vestry was enlarged in 1923.  

Listed for its special interest as a good, largely mid C19 church retaining a C16 tower and for its historical associations with the Hanbury family of Pontypool Park.