Monmouthshire’s Catholic churches are few in number but ‘unusually interesting’ architectural gems

Monmouthshire was a county notorious for its continuing recusancy after the Reformation, with many of its gentry remaining Catholic. In the 1640s there were more Catholics in Monmouthshire as a percentage of the population than any other county in England and Wales. A degree of protection was afforded by the Somersets of Raglan Castle, descended from Edward III through John of Gaunt. The 5th Earl of Worcester (1577-1646) converted to Catholicism as a young man and was created 1st Marquess of Worcester in 1642 as a reward for his financial assistance to Charles I.

His son the 2nd Marquess (1602-67) continued as a Catholic, but his grandson the 3rd Marquess (1629-1700) regrettably conformed to Protestantism under Oliver Cromwell. In due course he was created 1st Duke of Beaufort by Charles II in 1682. St David Lewis SJ, one of the Forty English Martyrs, worked in Monmouthshire for thirty years as a Catholic priest (much of the time based at the Gunter mansion at Abergavenny, which is currently being restored) and was eventually martyred in 1679 at Usk.

The new Pevsner volume of Monmouthshire/Gwent by John Newman says that “Roman Catholic Churches [in the county] are few but unusually interesting.” The earliest surviving Post-Reformation Catholic building is the Chapel of St Mary and St Michael at Llanarth Court, the seat of the Jones family from 1465. The Joneses were staunchly faithful, and Llanarth has seen continuous Catholic worship since the Reformation; the family adopted the name of Herbert in 1848. The house was donated to the Dominicans in 1948 and since 1986 has been a private hospital.

The chapel was designed in the late 18th century in an understated classical manner with little external decoration. The apse was added in 1930. The exterior is painted white, as is the interior with its Doric columns. It has lost its ornate Italian altar and its Gothick altar rails, but retains numerous fine furnishings including reset continental stained glass, glass by Hardman and Margaret Rope and a carved relief of St David attributed to Eric Gill. The chapel is served by the Benedictines from Abergavenny.

St Mary’s, Monmouth, was originally built as a Catholic chapel in 1793, located discreetly behind a row of existing cottages. The church was extended in 1870-1 by the convert architect Benjamin Bucknall, who demolished the cottages in front and extended the church to the west with additions of more bays. He also added an Italian Gothic red sandstone tower. The interior is plain with a pink ceiling and red surround. It contains a number of furnishings and relics of note, particularly those associated with St John Kemble, martyred in Herefordshire in 1679.

Our Lady of the Assumption, Newport, is a fine Early English design of 1840 by JJ Scoles – described in Pevsner as “a confident and conspicuous effort just a decade after Emancipation”. It has a tall, five-stage west tower. The interior is lofty and spacious with slender cast-iron columns of the nave arcade. The three stone altars have survived and the fine glass in the east window is by Hardman. The parish was served by the Rosminians until 2002.

St David Lewis and St Francis Xavier, Usk, was built in 1847 by Charles Hansom. The church is a good example of a small rural church in approved “Middle Pointed” style. The north tower was added by the same architect in 1865. The original rood screen has disappeared and been replaced by an altar rail apparently carved by inmates at Usk Prison. There is good glass by Hardman and Wailes.

Abergavenny remained an important Catholic centre during the penal years after the town’s medieval Benedictine priory was dissolved in 1540. The martyr St David Lewis was born here in 1616. Following the succession of James II, of blessed memory, the Franciscan Recollects established a house in the town. They left in 1857 and the mission was transferred by Bishop Thomas Brown of Newport and Menevia to the English Benedictine Congregation.

The Church of Our Lady and St Michael was built for the Benedictines in 1858-60 by Benjamin Bucknall. The church is a finely detailed Gothic design, with attached presbytery; it lacks a tower. The interior is lofty and well proportioned, with a six-bay nave; it has very large east window in the Decorated style, with portraits of various saints by Hardman. Furnishings include an elaborate high altar of 1883, designed by Edmund Kirby of Liver pool and carved by AB Wall of Cheltenham. A chantry chapel was added to the south aisle in 1894 to the memory of local 17th-century martyrs and richly decorated with paintings, sculpture and glass. The painting of St Michael located above the sacristy is by Kenelm Digby, and dates from 1861. The church also possesses a fine collection of medieval vestments. A forward-facing altar was added following the Second Vatican Council.

Glen Trothy is a large house outside Abergavenny designed by Edmund Kirby of Liverpool in 1883, originally for the Vaughans and subsequently purchased by the Herberts. Its Chapel of the Sacred Heart is richly painted and furnished. The crenellated reredos has a carved crucifixion above it and the sanctuary arch is flanked by statues of Our Lady and St Joseph. The chapel is currently not used for worship.

The foundation stone of the basilican church of Our Lady of Peace, Newbridge, designed by PD Hepworth, was laid by Archbishop Francis Mostyn of Cardiff on 16 April 1939. Construction was financed by Mrs Fflorens Roch of Llanover, the daughter of Ivor Herbert, 1st Baron Treowen; she was the last member of the family to reside at Llanarth. The design and prominent hillside location of this unashamedly continental Catholic Arts and Crafts church in the Nonconformist heartland of Ebbw Vale was intended as a statement; the tall, square campanile is a local landmark. The interior is dramatic and beautifully detailed, although sadly the original baldacchino was removed in the 1970s.

The latest addition to the Catholic ecclesiastical buildings of Monmouthshire is the fine Chapel of St Martin designed by Eurig Williams of Alwyn Jones Architects of Cardiff for Valentine Walsh FSA, an American-born painting conservator and Dame of Malta, in the woods near her charming and rather grand late-17th-century house, Trewyn, north of Abergavenny, in 2022-23. The chapel is a simple stone building with a steep slate roof; light streams in at the east end over the pink stone altar. The chapel, which seats some 20 people, was dedicated by the Archbishop of Cardiff, the Rt Revd Mark O’Toole, on 20 May this year.

The cast bronze bas-relief Lamb and Flag on the door of the black tabernacle is by Simon Erland. The pink stone water stoup, the piscina, the IHS on the altar and the outdoor Stations of the Cross (with their Maltese crosses) are by Simon Hudson. Most dramatic of all is the moving russet-metal Crucifixion to the east of the chapel, by Miranda Michels.

Photo: St David Lewis and St Francis Xavier, Usk (Photo credit: Philip Pankhurst.)

This article appears in the October 2024 edition of the Catholic Herald. To subscribe to our award-winning, thought-provoking magazine and have independent, high-calibre, counter-cultural and orthodox Catholic journalism delivered to your door anywhere in the world click HERE.

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