7410

 

II  

Designated  

24/10/1951  

01/02/1988  

St Mary's Parish Church  

 

Powys  

Hay  

 

 

322579  

242142  

 

On the W edge of the town, beside the Norman motte.  

Religious, Ritual and Funerary  

 

Early C12 origins; given to Brecon Priory. W tower added in C15; disused and ruined ca. 1700. Rebuilt by Edward Haycock the elder in 1833/4; chancel enlarged in 1866, possibly by T. Nicholson architect of Hereford.  

Late Georgian Gothic 6-bay aisless nave with attached 3-stage tower and 1-bay lower chancel with apsidal east end and attached S vestry and N organ chamber. Coursed rubble masonry to nave; rubble tower, with crenellated parapet over corbel table, and snecked rubble chancel and east end. Slate roof and wide corbelled eaves; freestone dressings including gable parapets and buttresses; apex finial to nave gable end and chevron ornamented eaves bands at E end, swept out to apse which has battered base. Lancet openings to tower, paired to top stage of N and S sides and to bottom of W side; later lean-to on N side with pointed entrance. Tall pointed nave windows with hood moulds; squared recess containing eroded coat of arms over porch with rounded jambs and boarded doors. Paired ogee windows to vestry and organ chamber, round arched doorways to the former and circular windows with dog-tooth surrounds in E walls; similar hood moulds with carved head stops to apse lancets. Recessed tablet on N side to members of Wellington family (1760's) and beside it an early Georgian monument Richard Wellington (d. 1732). The Churchyard retains a number of fine stone early C19 memorials and some C18 tombstones, including one with pedestal and urn to John Jones (1827), and several Roman sarophagi type memorials.  

The interior retains gallery, with Gothic timber front , to N and W sides carried on tall cast-iron columns and reached by two staircases with moulded tread ends; choir vestry under tower. Bold tripartite screen, with cylindrical piers, dog-tooth ornament and foliage capitals, opens into chancel which has boarded roof with trefoil cusping to gable ends; ribbed boarded apse roof carried on foliage carved stone corbels. Timber reredos with canopied niches; Italianated octagonal alabaster pulpit, dated 1865, (gift of Francis Trumper) on free standing columns and with carved heads. One stained glass window by Arthur dix, London 1906. Much damaged medieval recumbent effigy at W end. The Church bell is dated 1740 (by Evans Foundry, Chepstow).