Our Lady and St Patrick – Maesteg

Introduction

Our Lady and St Patrick in Maesteg is a Gothic Revival church built in 1906-7 to designs by Sebastian Pugin Powell of Pugin & Pugin (London).

History

In 1872, Dom William Price OSB built a church largely from a £2,000 legacy left by Edwin Wyndham-Quin, the Third Earl of Dunraven. After being appointed to the mission in 1902, Dom Maurus Kelly OSB acquired the site of the current church from Mr James O’Brien for £9,300. Bishop John Hedley of Newport and Menevia laid the foundation stone on 25 June 1906 and opened the completed church on 12 November 1907. Three stone altars by R L Boulton & Sons of Cheltenham were provided for the new church courtesy of a donation from Mr and Mrs J Boyd-Harvey of Tondu House, Aberkenfig.

A further Great War memorial was added in the narthex in the 1920s in memory of the 31 parishioners killed in the war. The Benedictines left the parish in 1951 with secular priests serving the parish since then. The sanctuary was reordered in 1972.

Architecture and furnishings

The church is Gothic Revival, orientated NE-SW with the liturgical E end to the SW, randomly coursed rock faced granite with Bath stone dressings and a slate roof. The church has an aisle-less nave, 6-bay and buttressed, with a sanctuary stepped in from nave with tall paired windows to both sides and a blind E (liturgical) wall. The nave has an open steep braced scissor truss roof, plastered and painted walls, and oak benches. To either side of the sanctuary arch are further altars, dedicated to Our Lady and St Patrick, with ornate carved foliage, canopies and statuary.

An octagonal baptismal font with simple carved cross detail is set in front of St Patrick’s altar. An inserted painted timber and glazed screen cuts over and partially obscures a wall painting of the pieta created as a Great War memorial, probably by Hardman. The ornate high altar, moved forward, is of Yorkshire limestone with pillars of Connemara marble. The reredos and retable, in original position, have elaborate carved canopies and statues of St Benedict and St David, with a central pinnacle and canopied Benediction throne over a brass tabernacle. Several late C20 stained glass windows are by John Edwards and Hardman & Co., including the St Michael window.