Church of St Agatha

Details

LLANYMYNECH AND PANT C.P.
SJ 22 SE
6/112

RECTORY LANE (south side)

Church of St. Agatha

GV

II

Parish church. 1844-5 by Thomas Penson on medieval site with further work of 1879. Regularly coursed and dressed carboniferous limestone with yellow brick and yellow sandstone dressings; graded slate roofs with high coped verges and toothed decoration to gables. Nave, chancel, north-west tower with porch beneath and south vestry. Neo-Norman style.

Tower. In four stages surmounted by pyramidal spire with fishscale tile roof. Clasping corner buttresses with nook-shafts to bottom three stages, nook-shaft only to belfry. Blind round-arched arcading, in two bays to bottom stage, three bays to second stage and one bay to third stage; all arches with ringed shafts, carved capitals and chevron decoration to heads; some with windows. Dog-tooth band separating second and third stages. Belfry has twin pointed openings within larger semi-circular opening, elaborate zig-zag decoration to arches. Corbel table with carved human heads. Spire has gabled lucarnes with round-headed windows; weathervane. Entrance on east side through round-headed arch with two bands of zig-zag decoration and one order of ring-shafts supporting carved capitals.

Nave. Buttressed in seven bays has corner buttresses carried up to form miniature corner turrets with ring-shafts to angles. Plain corbel table. Tall round-arched windows with zig-zag decoration, carved capitals and ring-shafts linked by continuous hoodmould. South side has narrow round-headed doorway in second bay from west. Fifth bay has gable breaking eaves with turret similar to those of corner buttresses and blind round-headed windows to either side of ridge of gabled vestry below which has three intersecting round-headed arches, outer lights blind. Blind round-headed window above and entrance through round-headed doorway on east; lean-to on west. Elaborately detailed west front has three intersecting round-headed arches with four windows, each with zig-zag decoration; two blind round-headed arches above. Chamfered string course below intersecting arches has corbel table with carved human heads. Nook-shafts carried down from outer shafts of outer windows frame slightly recessed round-headed doorway, which has three bands of carved decoration to arch and one order of ringed shafts. Pairs of round-headed windows to left and right.

Chancel has round-headed windows on north and south. Corbel table to east wall, which has window of five round-headed lights. Blind arcade of ten small round-headed arches beneath with plain shafts, carved capitals and zig-zag decoration to soffits. Blind round-headed window to gable, which has Celtic cross to apex.

Interior. Arch-braced collar beam roof with king-posts corbelled responds in six bays to nave, in 2 bays to chancel. West gallery approached through round-headed doorway on north, has round-arched blind arcading and is supported on two cast-iron columns (painted to resemble wood) with neo-Norman capitals. Round-headed chancel arch with tall ringed nook-shafts, carved decoration to extrados and intrados and yellow brick hoodmould. Blind round-headed arcade in six bays to north and south sides of chancel and in five bays to east wall. Zig-zag decoration to window heads and ringed nook-shafts in both nave and chancel, most elaborate to west end. Round-headed doorway to vestry.

Fittings and furnishings late C19 or later including Perpendicular-style stone pulpit of 1878. Small octagonal C19 font. Stained glass. East window by William Wailes (1855). Other windows 1860s except for two early C20 windows in nave north wall.

Monuments. C18 brasses fixed to west wall. C18 and C19 wall tablets and memorials from former church in gallery and tower, latter of which has massive pendulum of clock made by local inventor, Richard Roberts. Wooden tablet above west doorway commemorates rebuilding of church in 1844.

This entry was subject to a Minor Amendment on 9 December 2016.

Legacy

The contents of this record have been generated from a legacy data system.

Legacy System number:

256663

Legacy System:

LBS

Sources

Books and journals
Cranage, DHS, An Architectural Account of the Churches of Shropshire, (1908), Part 9. Page 801
Pevsner, N, The Buildings of England: Shropshire, (1958), 171

End of official list entry

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