1801

 

II  

Designated  

31/01/1994  

31/01/1994  

Roman Catholic Cathedral of St Mary  

 

Wrexham  

Offa  

 

 

333156  

350468  

S  

Opposite the junction with Grosvenor Road.  

Religious, Ritual and Funerary  

 

Built in 1857 at the expense of Richard Thompson, iron master and colliery owner, to designs of E. W. Pugin. Designated the Pro-Cathedral of the diocese of Menevia in 1907.  

Coursed and squared stone with slate roofs. Tower and spire to (liturgical) SW, nave with 2 lean-to aisles, clerestory and lower chancel. Additional aisle and side chapel to north. Late C13 style. West doorway in steep archway with shafts and hood mould, flanked by steep pinnacled niches. 5-light window above. 2-light windows in west walls of aisles, which are divided into 4 bays by buttresses, with 2-light geometrical traceried windows beneath angled hood moulds. Rose windows as clerestory lights. SW tower and spire, with steep trefoiled window in base of tower, lancet in upper stage, and paired bell-chamber lights. Brooch spire with lucarnes and projecting bands. Massive trefoiled east window in chancel, comprising rose window with a band of quatrefoil lights below.  

Early English arcade of 4 bays, clustered shafts with fillets, and hood moulds which form trefoils between each arch. Gallery in western bay, carried on chamfered timber piers. Splayed clerestory lights, and stilted arches to aisle windows. Wagon roof with wall posts on corbels to principal trusses. Clustered shafts to deep moulded chancel arch. Painted figures of angles on gilded ground set in shallow panels over chancel arch. Paired narrow arches to lady chapel to north. Full-height eastern arch, containing window. Stained glass in aisle windows form a series of memorial windows, none are signed or dated, but their style is reminiscent of that of Kempe and Tower, and they are probably late C19-early C20. NW window possibly earlier, a neo-medieval style incorporating a mosaic of fragments. Memorial to Ellan Thompson, (d. 1854), in side chapel of outer north aisle: recumbant effigy on an arched panelled tomb-chest with low-reliefs.  

Group value.