23914

 

II  

Designated  

15/08/2000  

15/08/2000  

Church of St David  

 

Rhondda Cynon Taff  

Pont-y-Clun  

Pontyclun  

Miskin  

304720  

180870  

S  

In the centre of the village and set back from the road in a walled churchyard.  

Religious, Ritual and Funerary  

 

Built 1906-7 by E M Bruce Vaughan, architect, partly by public subscription but largely at the expense of Emma Eleanor Williams of Miskin Manor. The church was sited E of a lodge and gateway to the long avenue to Miskin Manor. It replaced a corrugated iron church on the site.  

An Early-English style church comprising nave, lower and narrower chancel with lower organ recess and vestry projecting as transepts, and W tower. Of coursed rock-faced Quarella stone and freestone dressings, and steep slate roofs with eaves projecting on a moulded corbel table. The buttressed nave is 3 bays long and has 2-light windows with Y-tracery. A string course at impost level is carried over the windows as hood moulds. The S wall also has a string course at sill level. The tower is 3 stages, of which the upper stage is slightly narrower. Stepped angle buttresses rise to gablets at the top of the middle stage, above which the buttresses are shallower. The W door has 2 orders of shafts with moulded capitals, a moulded arch incorporating a dogtooth frieze, and a hood mould with head stops. The N and S walls have large single-light windows in the lower stage and plain lancets to the middle stage, where the W side has a pair of lancets. The upper stage has 2-light belfry windows with louvres, while an embattled parapet projects on a corbel table. A SE stair turret rises to a gablet at the top of the middle stage, has plain lights at lower and middle levels, above which is a pair of trefoiled lancets below a blind quatrefoil. The S transept, housing the vestry, has angle buttresses. It has a cinquefoiled lancet to the W, a pair of larger cinquefoiled lancets under a linked hood with head stops in the S wall, which also has a cinquefoiled bullseye window in the gable, while the E wall has a pointed doorway offset from the angle with the chancel. This has a hood mould with foliage stops, and a boarded door. The chancel has diagonal buttresses, and has a 2-light window in the S wall, 3 stepped lancets to the E under linked hoods with head stops and with a pointed quatrefoil above. A string course is at sill level. On the N side is a 2-light window and stone steps to a crypt below the N transept. The N transept, housing the organ, has windows similar to the S transept and with a doorway on the E side. A stack rises from the SW side of the transept.  

The interior is faced with Quarella stone and has a continuous string course at sill level. Nave windows have tripartite rere arches with shafts, moulded capitals and hood moulds with head stops. The nave has an arched-brace roof, the principals standing on full-height wall shafts. The pointed tower arch is low and narrow, and defined by a continuous hollow moulding. The 2-centred chancel arch has one order of attached shafts, moulded capitals, hood mould and head stops. The chancel is reached up 2 steps. Arches leading in to the organ recess and vestry have continuous wave mouldings and hood moulds with head stops. A full-height arch defining the sanctuary within the chancel has clustered attached shafts and moulded capitals. The rere arch to the E window is richer than the nave windows, having clustered shafts with annulets. The chancel has an arched-brace roof and a cornice bearing shields. Beyond the sanctuary arch it is richer with gold-painted bosses. Twin sedilia have clustered shafts and moulded capitals, trefoil arches with foliage to the spandrels, while the arches have an inner order of dogtooth and linked hood mould with foliage stops. They stand adjacent to a trefoil-headed piscina. The Perpendicular-style font is octagonal with panelled stem, while alternate faces around the bowl have relief carvings of a fish, Agnus Dei, ark and dove. The stone pulpit is polygonal, has openwork arcading over a blind quatrefoil frieze, and stands on a moulded pedestal. The pews have simple moulded bench ends, while the pews to the E have carved ends. Two priest's stalls have carved ends and openwork fronts, while the choir stalls have openwork seat backs and stall fronts. The E window contains figures of Christ and SS George and Paul. In the nave S windows are figures of SS David and Michael at the E end, of c1906, and SS George and Michael in a commemorative window by Jessie Bayes to Captain Glyn Rhys Williams (d.1943). Two windows in the N wall also have glass by Bayes, commemorating Rhys Rhys Williams (d.1955) and Juliet Rhys Williams (d.1964), while at the E end is a window commemorating Emma Eleanor Williams.  

Listed for architectural interest as a powerfully-designed and unaltered Edwardian estate church. Group value with war memorial and Miskin Arms, creating a strong visual focus to the village centre.