3020

 

II  

Designated  

02/05/1980  

14/09/1999  

St Mark’s Church  

 

Newport  

Allt-yr-Yn  

 

Gold Tops  

330624  

188337  

S  

Prominently located on the S side of Gold Tops within large sloping site between Gold Tops and Serpentine Road.  

Religious, Ritual and Funerary  

 

1872-74 by Habershon, Pite & Fawckner of Newport, architects. Vestry, reredos and chancel screen added 1902 by Graham, Hitchcox & Co., architects. Painted decoration on the chancel roof by George Pace , c. 1960. The parish, a prosperous suburb, was formed in 1875.  

Perpendicular style. Construction of red rubble sandstone with Bathstone detail. Roofs behind battlemented parapets and gables: hipped to vestry, with splays to canted E end. Plan consists of nave with clerestory and lean-to aisles, west tower, and chancel with N vestry. Tall three-stage tower with diagonal buttresses rising to tall pinnacles. Elaborate large paired belfry windows with panel tracery, the lights filled with ashlar openwork. Frieze of blank quatrefoils below battlements. Angle shafts between the windows rising to pinnacles. Clocks below to all sides, set within square openings. Projecting polygonal vice to NE corner terminating below clock level. W door of three orders, the outer two on shafts with plain caps. Large rose window above, lighting gallery; radiating tracery. N elevation of nave of five bays; three-light four-centred clerestory windows with idiosyncratic panel tracery. Central gabled and battlemented porch to aisle with boarded doors and tall cross-finial. Door of two orders with shafts; plain caps. Panel-traceried aisle windows of three lights; also to W and E. Battlements of aisle terminate in carved finials which have open trefoils and spirelets. N elevation of chancel partly obscured by later single storey battlemented vestry, which has a canted E elevation. Flat-headed Perp windows to vestry, which has three bay N elevation with central porch in similar style to aisle porches. Polygonal ashlar chimney to S side of vestry with battlemented top. E end of chancel has large five-light Perp window. S elevation of chancel of three bays with two-light windows between two-stage buttresses. S elevation to nave similar to N, the two l. bays terminated by tall square cupola-like open finials with spirelets.  

Five-bay arcades of double-chamfered arches on octagonal piers with moulded capitals. Chancel arch on triple shafts. Simple open-trussed roof to nave; thin principals rising from wall-posts, carved spandrels. Chancel roof has tie beams: principals rising from wallposts supported by large carved angels. Roofs have simple painted work by George Pace, with blue and white patterning over the altar. Gallery across west end of nave with front panels containing diagonal boarding: timber supporting brackets. Plain pews of 1875-77. Early C20 elaborate oak chancel screen of five bays, with tall open traceried panels: richly carved deep cornice with frieze. Pulpit of similar date; oak with open cusped panels: similarly detailed communion rail. Oak reredos of 1902, heavily carved, with broad polygonal terminals and centre niche, all with pinnacles. Sanctuary has coloured marble paving and altar steps. C20 hexagonal font with carved oak sides. Stained glass: east window of 1891by A. Savell, Ascension; S aisle E of 1876; S aisle SE of 1913 by Savell (St Mark). Other stained glass windows, mostly C20.  

Listed as a well-designed large late C19 parish church, a prominent landmark in the town.