SS David Lewis & Francis Xavier – Usk

Introduction

SS David Lewis & Francis Xavier in Usk is a Grade II listed church, designated on 30/04/2004. Architect Charles Hansom built the church in 1847 and added the tower in 1865. The church is an early example of a C19 Roman Catholic church by a prominent architect.

Architecture and furnishings

The church is built of coursed old red sandstone with bathstone dressings and slate roofs, in Decorated Gothic style. The church has a nave and S aisle of 4 bays, chancel, vestry, N porch, and N tower. The E window of the risen Christ flanked by Saints is by Hardman (1857). The chancel S window, Boy presented to Virgin, is also by Hardman, circa 1862.

The S aisle E window, Annunciation, is by Wailes from the 1850s. The SE window of the aisle has Saints by H Beiler of Heidelberg, circa 1908. A three-light Geometrical style window occupies the west end. The gabled porch has diagonal buttresses, a quatrefoil window in its right wall, stone benches inside, and a narrow Gothic doorway with a stoup to the right.

The tower carries a steep pavilion slate roof with lucarnes and two-light Decorated windows at the recessed bellstage, which is flanked by angle buttresses. The vestry at the northeast corner has a chimney, a two-light dormer, and a three-light ground-floor window. The nave roof is supported by thin scissor braces and wall posts. The four-bay arcade to the south aisle stands on octagonal piers. The inner order of the chancel arch rests on floral corbels, and the chancel is covered by a wagon roof.