Saints Peter and Frances

Introduction

Saints Peter and Frances in Prestatyn, within the Diocese of Wrexham, was established as the Catholic parish in 1903, with the church completed the same year to the design of Edmund Kirby of Liverpool.

Architecture and furnishings

Sir Pyers Mostyn of Talacre funded the church's construction, which was carried out by Mr Thomas of Prestatyn at a cost of approximately £2,000. The church is a wide building in red brick and terracotta with a red tile roof, laid in English Garden Wall bond. A notable feature is the squatly designed entrance porch at the north, executed in arts and crafts half timbering on a high brickwork plinth. The nave has four bays articulated by buttresses, and the apse defining the chancel is polygonal in five bays.

The altar, donated in 1925, is made of coloured and highly figured marble with a mosaic cross at the centre, though it is not original to the church. Some bluer bricks create a diaper effect in the brickwork, and miniature bricks are used in the window head details of the north-west elevation. The apse is narrower than the nave but has a higher eaves, and little hip-roofed transepts at each side resolve the clash at eaves level. The apse elevations are fenestrated in groups of three lights with simple foliated heads, with a string course at head and sill level.

The west elevation is in two bays defined by buttresses, with a three-light group in each bay under a tall relieving arch and a large seven-light cusped rose window above. The porch is open-fronted, built upon brick side walls in massive timber framing with leaded-glazed front and side windows, and the church's name appears on the collar beam. The roof is gabled to the front with forward projecting wallplates tusk-tenoned into the bargeboards. Within the porch the entrance door is plain with splayed reveals and a pointed arch, and there is a small water stoup at right.

The nave is entered by the north west corner through a large door with multiple bracing internally. The nave roof has four bays with high collar beam trusses with cusped struts above and large arch braces below extending beneath wallplate level. The interior is plastered and painted white, with a wood block floor and pitch-pine pews with open backs. Cinquefoil headed niches with Christ with Wounds and Sacred Heart to left of chancel arch and Virgin and Child to right.

Around the nave are the Stations of the Cross in oak frames. A top stage of reredos finials is said to have been removed c1955. To the left of the altar is an aumbry and to the right a piscina / sacrarium. The Junior Church Catechists prepare children for the sacraments of First Reconciliation, First Holy Communion and Confirmations.

Parish life

The parish has a variety of active groups including Pastoral Support Group, Junior Church & Youth, Ladies Group, Social Committee, Horticultural Group, Craft Group, Choir, and Altar Servers. For baptism candidates over the age of seven, a period of instruction and formation in the Catholic faith is required, lasting normally six months.

Regular events

The Junior Church meets every Sunday during Mass in Ss Peter and Frances, Prestatyn, during school term time. The Catechists arrange regular parties for the children, including the annual Easter Egg Hunt on Easter Sunday and the Nativity Tableau at Christmas.