7239

 

II*  

Designated  

19/07/1963  

25/09/1986  

St Edmunds King & Marthyr Parish Church  

 

Powys  

Crickhowell  

 

 

321646  

218431  

 

In an elevated and oval-shaped churchyard to W of Town Centre.  

Religious, Ritual and Funerary  

 

Decorated Gothic church begun by Lady Sibyl Pauncefote in 1303 on the creation of the parish; many later alterations including removal of the aisles in 1765 and their subsequent replacement in 1826 and 1835; further restoration in 1868, including work by J L Pearson; roofs replaced in 1897.  

Nave, N and S aisles, transepts and NE chapel, crossing tower and spire, chancel with S vestry; main entrance to W end. Local red sandstone rubble walls, tiled roofs with cresting, shingles to spire, freestone dressings including gable parapets and crucifix finials. 2-bay chancel with some replacements to lancet window and head-stopped hood moulds; voussoir relieving arches. 3-light E window with intersecting tracery and dropped cill; hood moulds and voussoirs. Victorian priest's porch converted to vestry use in 1973 with acutely pointed double cusped window to S wall in blocked former doorway and blocked Y-tracery window to E side. Single bay transepts with 2-light Geometrical windows, hood moulds with ball stops; cat-slide roof E extension to N Transept, lancet windows and rubble chimney stack. Central tower with, unusually for Wales, an octagonal broach spire (shingles replaced in 1963); weathervane to top and corbelled parapet with gargoyles probably part of Pearson's restoration; cusped louvred lancet to bell stage and clock face to N and S sides. 3-bay nave with parallel Victorian pitched roofs; Geometrical windows replacing original intersecting tracery, octagonal chimney stack to N aisle. Broad 3-gabled W front, heavily buttressed; similar aisle windows flanking central 3-light window of Decorated type with impaled trefoils; cill bands. Central coursed rubble porch of 1832, rebuilt in 1974; (corbel suggests that original porch was a lean-to); voussoirs to boarded door entrance.  

Interior retains fine group of monuments to chancel set in C13 style recesses, 2 to S side, 3 to N side; NE recess, made in 1865 with stilted arch and foliated stops, is stepped up and contains reset recumbent alabaster figures of Sir John and Lady Joan Herbert dated 1690. Early C14 monument in adjacent recess of Lady Sibyl Pauncefote portrayed with no hands in a reference to the Pauncefote legend. Sir Grimbald Pauncefote (died 1287) lies opposite with broken limbs; commemorative tiles of 1926 above; other C17 and C18 monuments. Cusped sedilia and single-drain piscina; Gothic reredos in Caen stone of 1894 by Nicholson of Hereford depicts 'Last Supper'; Rumsey arms to right of High Altar; Gothic brass altar rails. Transepts known as Rumsey (S) and Gwernvale (N) chapels. Perpendicular screen and reredos to S by W D Caroe, 1934, and S window glass by C A Gibbs; organ to N. Octagonal piers to nave, bays of unequal widths; chamfered 2 order arcades with voussoirs. Buttresses to W end added when aisles removed. C14 cusped niche to E end of S aisle. Victorian roofs throughout, rib vaulted under tower and with flying braces to the chancel.  

Believed to be the only church in Wales dedicated to St Edmund.