87906

 

II  

Interim Protection  

 

 

Catholic Church of St Illtyd  

 

Denbighshire  

Rhuddlan  

Rhuddlan  

 

302293  

378605  

 

Set amongst housing on the N side of Rhuddlan, accessed from Maes Onnen and Vicarage Lane.  

Religious, Ritual and Funerary  

Modern  

Catholic church of 1975-76 by the architectural practice the Bowen Dann Davies Partnership (BDDP). The contractor was Anwyl Construction. Construction cost was £48,000. Like many towns along the N Wales coast, Rhuddlan experienced rapid growth in the post-war period. The Catholic congregation had rented a former stable for Mass for many years, but in 1960 the Bishop of Menevia started a fundraising campaign for a permanent church. The funds were in place by the mid-1970s. The parish priest, Fr Murphy, briefed the architectural practice the Bowen Dann Davies Partnership for a church that could accommodate different sizes of congregations depending on the time of year and the number of holiday makers in the town. BDDP had recently completed the nearby Catholic church at Towyn (qv), as well as the one at Benllech (qv) on Anglesey. These churches probably inspired the choice of architect at Rhuddlan and influenced the approach to the design of the church. BDDP incorporated many features that had been employed at their earlier churches, such as flexible capacity, layout and position of sacristy, confessional, WCs and a small kitchen - and followed the same principles of design of low spreading roofs and external expression of the plan. The spacious interior expresses contemporary ideas about liturgical practice after the Second Vatican Council (1962-65). Rhuddlan was the second of 3 remarkable churches produced by BDDP between 1973 and 1982. It developed themes of a Welsh vernacular that Stewart Powell Bowen had established with the design of Our Lady of Lourdes at Benllech (1964-5) and for which Bill Davies contributed all the architectural work. Christ the King in Towyn followed in 1973-4, echoing the design of Benllech. Rhuddlan was constructed shortly afterwards and was awarded a RIBA Commendation in 1978. A few years later in 1982 the practice completed the Welsh Presbyterian chapel of Capel y Groes in Wrexham, which again carried the design themes of domesticity and low spreading roofs and clearly expressed plans. It won a Civic Trust Commendation in 1982, a RIBA Commendation and the Gold Medal for Architecture at the National Eisteddfod of Wales both in 1984.  

Long low building, scaled to fit with the surrounding housing. Painted roughcast walls. Low swooping asbestos cement slate roof with deeply overhanging eaves. Dark-stained timber windows. Three principal blocks – church, hall and sacristy, with the church at the widest end of the range to the north. From here, the building successively steps down in height, and steps in on plan on the eastern side, so that each block is clearly articulated. At the north end (the liturgical east), the roofline thrusts up to a clerestory over the sanctuary, glazed on its eastern face. Sanctuary also lit from tall and narrow glazed panels in each corner. Side doorway and banded windows beneath the eaves wrapping around the NE angle where the main body of the church steps out beyond the sanctuary. Hall stepped down from church, and stepped in on plan to E: doorway and banded windows wrapping the NE angle as before. Similar detail to sacristy, stepped down again. Glazed rooflights at the ridge of hall and sacristy blocks. Unbroken W elevation with windows in long bands beneath the eaves and around the main glazed entrance towards the north end.  

Simple interior of white painted walls and exposed natural materials, including parquet floor (carpeted to nave and sanctuary) and boarded beams and ceilings, which are asymmetrical and with forms that vary between church and hall. Altar and font on raised platform, the timber font in the form of an inverted ziggurat with a green plinth and slate top. Tabernacle decorated with the symbols of the Eucharist. Original benches and other furnishings, all part of the original design. No structural distinction between church and hall, enabling hall space to serve as extension to church.  

Included for its special interest as a fine example of a post-war Catholic church, and of the work of the Bowen Dann Davies Partnership, one of the most accomplished architectural partnerships in Wales in the post-war period. The building is an assured exemplar of the modernist vernacular idiom with which the Partnership is particularly associated, allied to the reforming ideas of the Second Vatican Council The church survives relatively little altered. This structure has been afforded Interim Protection under the Planning (Listed Building and Conservation Areas) Act 1990. It is an offence to damage this structure and you may be prosecuted. To find out more about Interim Protection, please visit the statutory notices page on the Cadw website. For further information about this structure, or to report any damage please contact Cadw.