Church of St David, Pantasaph

Introduction

St David's church in Pantasaph, designed by architect T H Wyatt, was started in 1849, with the foundation stone laid by Lady Fielding. St David's was opened in 1852, and in the same year the Friary was established with Franciscan Friars of the Capuchin Reform.

Architecture and furnishings

The N nave windows have stained glass bearing saints, by Hardman, 1852. Stained glass to S aisle windows, mainly C20, that to the W by Harry Clarke 1931-4. In the N wall of the chancel is an effigy of Rudolph William Basil, 8th Earl of Denbigh (1823-92), designed by Purdie and undertaken by Boulton & Sons. The pipe organ is in a fine wooden Gothic-style case, by Henry Poyser, Chester.

The church is built of snecked stone with sandstone dressings, under slate roofs, and has windows with Geometrical bar tracery. A three-stage tower with a stepped pyramidal spire rises at the church, with a polygonal stair turret at the southeast angle. Inside, the five-bay nave has cusped arch-braces on long wall posts that rest on large stone corbels carved with angels. The chancel roof is keel-vaulted, boarded and panelled, and decorated with foliate bosses.

The stone altar in the chancel stands on four marble columns with foliate capitals and has rear panels bearing biblical scenes in relief. Flanking the east window are marble statues of Saint David and Saint Asaph under canopies with pinnacles and crockets, designed by Pugin. The Lady Chapel, beneath the spire, has a marble altar table on red marble columns with ringed capitals and bases. The large octagonal stone font at the west end of the nave, by Pugin, is supported on circular marble shafts around a central stem and an octagonal base, with each face bearing the emblems of the Evangelists in relief.

The east window contains fine stained glass depicting the life of Christ, including the Crucifixion. The church retains a fine collection of High Gothic fittings, including encaustic floor tiles and deeply-coloured stencilled wall coverings. Between and flanking the north nave windows are seven arched stone recesses containing the stations of the cross in high relief, with the remaining seven stations in the south aisle. On the south side of the organ is a fragment of the former baptistery screen.

The church has choir stalls arranged around the east end. The church has a doorway leading to the friary buildings. The church contains a confessional with its own door and an aumbry.