Our Lady of Peace – Newbridge

Introduction

Our Lady of Peace – Newbridge, in the town of Newbridge in the Archdiocese of Cardiff-Menevia, was built in the late 1930s by architect P D Hepworth, who was educated in Paris and Rome. The church is a tall basilica style church aligned roughly north-south, with the chancel facing south, and an attached campanile style bell tower.

History

The church is listed at Grade II* as an early to mid twentieth-century Roman Catholic church of especially effective design and atmospheric interior in a commanding position. The parish provides the sacrament of the Eucharist.

Architecture and furnishings

The church is built of brick, rendered and painted, with a grey pantile roof with overhanging eaves. The five-storey bell tower at the south-west has a bell chamber with four round-arched openings with moulded surrounds giving views of the bells, each with a small wrought iron balcony with brackets, and a conical roof with a metal cross. On the north side, a small single-storey five-sided baptistry has small round-headed lights, and above it is a large round window with a stepped surround and an iron PX motif in the apex.

The unusual plan has an arcade and passage leading into the church from the side, on the west. The main body of the church is divided by a tall plain chancel arch. The nave is lit to the side by plain tall round-headed windows, to the rear by a high roundel, with similar roundels high on each side of the chancel; there is no window over the altar, but a crucifix set within a tall blind arch. The rear narthex and baptistry, with small windows, is divided off by a metal screen.

The roof has six bays with trusses comprising a tie beam supported by brackets with a centre post; all the members and the ceiling panels are painted with stencil decoration, and each bay has a pair of low hanging painted wrought iron light fittings. The floor of the nave is wood, with slate paving in the sanctuary and baptistry. The sacristy has oak panelling. The lancet windows have deeply splayed sills and the roundels have moulded surrounds.

The nave has five long narrow lights at clerestory level; on the east side the bays are separated at lower level by triangular buttresses, while on the west side the pitched-roof aisle has roundel windows separated by pilasters. Roundels at clerestory level to the chancel have lancets below and a large cross in the blank gable end. Attached to the south is the single-storey sacristy range with hipped roofs, round-arched and roundel windows, and a separate round-arched entrance.