20645

 

II  

Designated  

21/10/1998  

21/10/1998  

Penmyarth Park Chapel  

 

Powys  

Llanfihangel Cwmdu with Bwlch and Cathedine  

 

Penmyarth  

318652  

219858  

 

In Penmyarth Park approximately 550m W of Glanusk Bridge, on N side of River Usk. The church is surrounded by railings.  

Religious, Ritual and Funerary  

 

Designed and built in 1852 and an integral part of the Glanusk Estate. Glanusk Park was created by Joseph Bailey, an ironmaster, on land he purchased on the banks of the River Usk in 1825. A house, lodges and gardens were designed by Robert Lugar 1825-30, and in 1831 Bailey extended the park by purchasing the neighbouring Penmyarth Park on the N side of the river, where the chapel was later erected, and which was joined to Glanusk by a bridge of 1836.  

Early-English style chapel consisting of nave, chancel and W tower. Of coursed, rock-faced sandstone and slate roof. Three-stage W tower has stone slab offsets and diagonal buttresses rising to the top of the second stage where they are crowned with gablets. The W doorway has a lancet arch, one order of shafts with stiff leaf capitals and a hood mould with foliage stops. In the N and S walls is a string course. The lower stage is the porch and has a rib vault with foliage boss and a boarded W door with elaborate strap hinges. In the middle stage the W, N and S faces have a single lancet with one order of shafts with moulded capitals. The bell stage has 2-light mullioned windows with triangular heads, with a smaller one-light window in E face. A short pyramidal spirelet of overlapping stone slabs has projecting eaves, beneath which is a corbel table of foliage and grotesques. The nave and chancel have stepped buttresses, and coped gables on moulded kneelers with little gablets on the eaves. The nave has, to N, two 2-light geometrical windows and one lancet to R, all with sill band and hood moulds with foliage stops. In the chancel are windows with similar details, one lancet in the N wall and 3 stepped lancets in the E wall with continuous hood mould. The chancel has a small gabled vestry to S. The nave S windows are similar to N.  

Not inspected at time of survey (August 1997), but said to have fine stained glass, possibly by Clayton & Bell, and a monument to Sir Joseph Bailey (d. 1858) by J.E. Thomas.  

A well preserved Victorian estate church and an integral component of the group of C19 estate buildings at Glanusk and Penmyarth.