Church of St David, Mold

Introduction

The Church of St David in Mold was built in 1965-6 and designed by the practice Weightman and Bullen. The church was constructed at a cost of £45,000.

History

Originally it was intended to have an enclosed courtyard to the front of the church, but this was not included in the final design. The practice also designed the slightly later St David in Tywyn (1969). The church was designed by the practice Weightman and Bullen who developed a modern approach to church design at the time of the Second Vatican Council and were responsible for a number of commissions, especially across northwest England.

Architecture and furnishings

The church was built as part of a wider scheme that included a presbytery, parish hall, school and convent. The design is based on a traditional longitudinal plan of aisled nave, transepts and sanctuary, radically re-imagined in a modern idiom and expressed in modern materials. The church has rustic orange Leicestershire brick facing to a steel reinforced masonry pier construction. The church has steel and timber copper-clad roofs.

A campanile is advanced at the SW corner with a single bronze bell and a giant aluminium cross (originally fibreglass). The sanctuary is dramatically top-lit from a glazed lantern, flanked by transept-like chapels dedicated to Our Lady and St David. In 2022, 12 dalle de verre stained glass windows by Jonah Jones were installed in the church following their removal from The Resurrection of Our Holy Saviour, Morfa Nefyn. The transept chapels each have abstract stained glass dalle de verre windows by Charles Norris, a monk from Buckfast Abbey.

The 12 windows by Jonah Jones are distributed throughout the church in two sets: 8 are mounted in frames in front of existing windows and 4 are mounted in lightboxes on internal walls. The interior has a broad and lofty nave with aisles threaded through brick-clad piers that define alternating wide and narrow bays. The former baptistry at the southwest is used as a repository. Shallow arches in the east walls of the transepts open into narrow bays with tall windows providing concealed side-lighting to the sanctuary.

The recessed west front has a lean-to copper-clad canopy over the entrance, and tall windows stretching from this roof to the eaves, in the angles with the advanced aisles. There is an additional entrance in the west end of the north aisle. The interior is of rustic orange Leicestershire bricks, as externally. The gallery at the west end is accessed by a spiral staircase in the northwest corner.

Parish life

The parish of St David belongs to the Diocese of Wrexham. The parish has a local Catholic primary school, St David's Primary School. The parish priest belongs to the Carmelites of Mary Immaculate religious order. The parish is increasingly involved in CAFOD's campaigning work, raising awareness and challenging politicians to make decisions favouring the disadvantaged.