11912

 

II  

Designated  

12/03/1992  

12/03/1992  

Church of All Saints  

 

Carmarthenshire  

Llanelli  

 

 

250537  

200708  

 

Situated in churchyard set back and above Goring Road.  

Religious, Ritual and Funerary  

 

1872-4 Anglican parish church by leading Victorian ecclesiastical architect G E Street of London, the west end completed to original plans 1887 under A E Street.  

Brown rock-faced snecked rubble with Bath stone dressings, green slate roofs and terracotta ridges. Nave with aisles, transepts, chancel, south east incomplete tower over organ-chamber, north east vestries. Sloping site such that west end is raised over extensive crypt. Clerestoried 5-bay nave with coped gables, projecting coped transept gables in fifth bay, 4 small pairs of clerestory lights and lean-to aisles with 3-light pain plate-traceried windows. Gabled porch in first bay of south aisle. Sill course to aisles, and low buttresses. Transepts have sill course and big plate traceried 3-light window with pierced sexfoils above side lights. Porch has 6 steps up to shafted pointed entry. Continuously moulded inner door frame with ledged doors and fine wrought iron hinges. Tall west end with 2 long pointed 3-light windows and 3 big buttresses. Gable roundel. Aisles have 2-light end windows with quatrefoils over. Basement pair of 4-light windows to nave and door to north aisle. Chancel has coped east gable, big 5-light east window, stepped lancets with stepped sill-course beneath, north lean-to with battered chimney and 2-light small east window and south side single lancet. Attached big incomplete tower, the south front framed by buttresses, the right buttress including rounded stair tower. Pointed door to ground floor left, long pointed window to centre and 2 small louvered vents near truncated top, which has shallow pyramid roof. East side has 2 long lancets and pointed relieving arch.  

Interior: Very finely detailed in grey stone with Bath stone dressings, severe arcades with round piers and caps, moulded pointed arches without hoodmoulds, and clerestory with pointed rear arches. Big roof trusses of moulded tie-beams on short arched braces and with arched braces to collars. North west stairs down to crypt. Under nave central aisle is tiled font for total immersion. Wall-shaft at end of arcades before taller transept arches. Transepts have scissor-rafter roofs, south transept has large pointed east arch into organ-chamber in tower base, north transept has smaller moulded arch to Lady Chapel, both have west arches into aisles. Corbelled chancel arch with low ashlar chancel screen wall, panelled with wrought iron gates. Chancel is in grey lias ashlar with Bath stone dressings and is in 2 sections, the choir with panelled boarded canted roof, 2 arches to north on single column and one large arch on south to organ-chamber, then single step up into encaustic tiled east end, another step to sanctuary and 2 to altar. Five pointed transverse stone arches, close-spaced with red brick between. String course under arch springing and another lower down. Tall south lancet lighting altar over paired arched piscina and paired arched sedilia, marble shafted with hoodmoulds. East window has detached marble shafts with shaft rings and stepped hoodmould. To north small Lady Chapel with north door into vestry with south wall fireplace and column-shaft to east window. Stained Glass: Exceptionally fine 5-light east window of 1879, probably by Clayton and Bell and one richly coloured south aisle window of circa 1876 with masonic emblems. West end has extensive and good quality glass of circa 1900 and aisle west windows of circa 1890. North aisle has first window of circa 1903 and fourth of circa 1901, signed R J Newbury. North transept glass of circa 1910 and south transept glass of circa 1906. Small Lady Chapel window of 1895 signed H Davis, London. Fittings: Rich and heavily carved reredos of 1879 with high-relief Crucifixion panel in stone with traceried canopies and stiff-leaf carved border, lower flanking panels each with 2 carved relief angels in quatrefoils. Each side on east wall is intersecting arcading with Purbeck marble shafts and embossed glazed tiles in 5 colours. Fine font at south end, marble, sexlobe, on stone and marble base of 6 clustered columns with stiff-leaf caps and marble shafts. Wrought iron cover. Timber pulpit of 1924, brass eagle lectern, and carved oak chancel stalls. Plain organ case, painted organ pipes, organ by Hill of London.  

Listed for special historic and architectural interest as a parish church by G E Street, a major architect of the Gothic Revival, with a fine contemporary interior including exceptional stained glass.