St Mary – Chepstow

Introduction

A church may have been built in 1796, possibly on St Michael’s Hill. In 1972 the church in Welsh Street, by then too small and in need of repair, was demolished to make way for an access road to a car park.

Confession at St Mary's is available by appointment with the parish priest. New altar servers are welcomed at St Mary's, with full training provided.

Architecture and furnishings

On plan the building is a segment of a circle, with the seating arranged in a radial pattern converging on the altar, and with a separate Blessed Sacrament chapel and ancillary spaces behind the sanctuary. Externally it is faced in brick, with stone to the curved external walls of the sanctuary and chapel. The roof slopes up towards the sanctuary, with steel beams carrying a roof originally finished with copper. Alongside the main entrance is a tall, narrow brick campanile with attached cross.

The interior was designed to meet the liturgical requirements of the Second Vatican Council, with the altar the focal point, no seating more than thirty feet from this and no communion rails. The walls are of fair faced pale brick, the floors carpeted over woodblock in the sanctuary, and the roof has acoustic panels between the steel beams. The sanctuary is raised on a curved dais of two steps. The altar is of simple design, of Forest of Dean stone with a tapering base. The Blessed Sacrament chapel is behind a glazed screen, and has a small circular altar and tabernacle with granite plinth flanked by wooden statues of the Holy Family.

Music and liturgy

The Helenstowe Consort from Abingdon performed sacred music by Tallis, Byrd, Purcell, Schütz, Bruckner, Parry and Stanford at a Lenten concert, with organ and flute pieces by Bach, Handel and Franck. The Holy Rosary is prayed in St Mary's before every Mass.

Visiting

The parish runs an SVP Conference serving Chepstow, Caldicot and Magor. The church offers a livestream of services, viewable online.

Order of Mass sheets are available at the front of the church for visitors to take. The church has a space for parents with small children, alongside the sacristy and WCs.