Newport Cathedral: A Historic Welsh Cathedral Church
Site at a Glance
- Rating
- 4.7
- Popularity
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- Country
- United Kingdom
- Primary era
- Medieval
- External website
- Open
- Eras represented
- Medieval, Modern
- Civilizations
- Norman, Welsh
- Site type
- Religious
- Remains
- Cathedral
On this page18 sections
History
Newport Cathedral, officially the Cathedral Church of St Woolos, King and Confessor, is a historic Christian church in the United Kingdom whose origins are traditionally linked to the Welsh ruler Gwynllyw. The present building combines twelfth-century Romanesque work with later English Gothic additions, and it serves the Church in Wales as the cathedral of the Diocese of Monmouth and the seat of its bishop. It became a cathedral in 1949, while continuing its longstanding role as Newport’s parish church.
Gwynllyw and the early church
Gwynllyw, traditionally described as the king of Gwynllwg, lived in the later fifth century. Tradition holds that after converting to Christianity he built a wooden church on the prominent hill now associated with the cathedral and was buried there around AD 500. His tomb made the church a place of pilgrimage. Gwynllyw is generally regarded as a historical person, although miraculous events surround the stories of his life and burial. Earlier traditions portray him as a warrior, robber, and pirate before his conversion. He was the husband of St Gwladys and the father of St Cadoc, a major Welsh saint and religious scholar.
The early church was attacked and plundered several times. Tradition associates some attacks with Irish pirates and Danes, while another assault, in 1060, was carried out by followers of Harold Godwinson. A major pirate attack is conventionally placed around 1050. The wooden church was destroyed and later replaced in stone during the Anglo-Saxon period, probably before the larger medieval church was built.
Medieval expansion and damage
After the Anglo-Norman conquest of South Wales, a first castle was built at Newport in the late eleventh or early twelfth century near the church. During the twelfth century, a larger Romanesque church was constructed east of and attached to the earlier building. This arrangement preserved the sanctity of the site traditionally associated with Gwynllyw’s original church. The church retained the status of Newport’s parish church because of its prestige, even though it stood on a hill outside the medieval town and its defensive gates.
Newport later developed around the castle and the River Usk, and during the nineteenth century the church became surrounded by the town’s western suburbs. Owain Glyndwr, the Welsh prince who led a major revolt against English rule in the early fifteenth century, attacked the church in 1402, causing severe damage. Later fifteenth-century rebuilding included the construction or enlargement of the aisles, a two-storey porch, and the western tower. Jasper Tudor may have financed the tower. During the English Civil War, the church suffered further damage. A tradition holds that supporters of Oliver Cromwell shot the head from an exterior statue associated with Gwynllyw or Jasper Tudor.
Restoration and parish history
St Mary’s Chapel was restored or substantially rebuilt during the eleventh, thirteenth, and nineteenth centuries, including a restoration in 1818 and 1819. A full restoration of the church followed in 1853. The porch was demolished and rebuilt, and the chancel was remodelled. A sacristy was added at the chancel’s north corner in 1913, when the building was also restored and re-roofed.
A new St Woolos Cemetery opened about one mile west of the cathedral in 1854. The last burials in the old churchyard took place in 1869. The church became the pro-cathedral of the newly created Diocese of Monmouth in the early 1920s. A pro-cathedral is a church that serves provisionally as the cathedral of a diocese. A cathedral chapter and dean were established around 1930, and the church received full cathedral status in 1949 under the Church in Wales, the Anglican ecclesiastical body separate from the Church of England.
Nineteenth- and twentieth-century associations
The cathedral grounds also preserve a connection with the Newport Chartist uprising of 4 November 1839. Chartism was a British movement that sought wider democratic and political rights. During the uprising, soldiers of the 45th Regiment of Foot shot at least 22 people in front of the Westgate Hotel. A cathedral memorial commemorates ten victims who were buried in unmarked graves in the churchyard. A nearby sculpture of large nineteenth-century workman’s boots recalls the Chartists’ march.
The earlier chancel was demolished and replaced on a larger scale between 1960 and 1964. Alban Caroe designed the extension, which included a choir chapel later refurbished as St Luke’s Chapel in 1987. The choir subsequently returned to its former position in front of the chancel. The organ was rebuilt in 1966 using parts of a 1915 Griffin and Stroud organ and an instrument salvaged from Newport Old Town Hall. Nicholson of Worcester rebuilt it again in 1997. Pews were removed in 2006 to make the interior more flexible and expose more of its architectural space, and the roof was renovated in 2011.
The cathedral has maintained a longstanding choral tradition. Its choir includes boys, girls, and adult singers, with a repertoire extending from the seventeenth century to the twenty-first.
Remains
Newport Cathedral has a composite plan formed from several historical phases. A western tower and St Mary’s Chapel stand at the west end, separated from the main church by the chapel. The church itself consists of a nave with north and south aisles, a large chancel, and a sacristy at the chancel’s north corner. A later hall occupies the north side. Reddish-brown stone and pale ashlar, finely cut and regularly laid masonry, form the principal fabric, while the roofs are generally tiled. Romanesque heavy masonry and round arches stand beside later Gothic work with larger windows and stronger vertical emphasis.
The western complex
Western tower
The western tower dates from the fifteenth century and is built in the Perpendicular style, a later English Gothic manner characterized by vertical lines, large windows, and flatter pointed arches. It has battlements and stepped corner buttresses, together with broad, relatively flat arches and wide Gothic windows. A headless statue on the outside of its third storey is traditionally associated with Jasper Tudor, a powerful fifteenth-century nobleman and uncle of Henry VII. The tower contains thirteen bells, described as the largest ring of bells in Wales. Whether an earlier tower occupied the site remains uncertain.
St Mary’s Chapel
St Mary’s Chapel occupies the site and preserves the footprint of the church traditionally founded by Gwynllyw. His tomb is believed to have stood on the building’s south side. A modern glass screen shows Gwynllyw holding a church and St David holding a dove. St David is the patron saint of Wales. The chapel also contains several mutilated medieval effigies in recesses of its north wall. A central sculptured panel depicts four mourners and carries the heraldic arms of Sir John Morgan of Tredegar, who died in 1493.
Font and chapel windows
Near the west end of St Mary’s Chapel stands a Victorian reconstruction of a Romanesque font incorporating a surviving fragment from an earlier font. Its shaft and base retain a medieval appearance. A medieval octagonal window is set low in the chapel’s south wall. It is believed to have been moved there in 1913, when the south porch of the main church was remodelled. Two abstract twentieth-century windows by Frank Roper are also located on the chapel’s north side.
Romanesque church
Twelfth-century portal
The twelfth-century Romanesque portal is decorated with zig-zag chevron patterns. Its outer decorative order derives from Gloucester Cathedral, while the inner order has parallels with the Herefordshire School of Romanesque sculpture. Traces of paint remain, suggesting that the portal was originally fully painted. The columns are Roman in origin and may have been brought from the nearby Roman legionary fortress at Caerleon. One interpretation proposes that they first formed part of a shrine over Gwynllyw’s grave before being reused in the portal. The Composite capitals may also be Roman and, if so, were recut.
The carvings on the portal capitals have been interpreted in several ways. They may represent Biblical subjects such as the Creation, the Fall, the Flood, the Baptism of Christ, and the Trinity. They have also been read as episodes from the lives of Gwynllyw and Cadoc, or as imagery designed to evoke both Biblical narratives and the two Welsh saints. The figures’ hair and tunics on the north capital recall fourth-century Roman art.
Nave and aisles
The nave has five Romanesque round arches on each side, carried on massive column-like piers. Its rounded clerestory windows, windows placed high above the main arcades, are now internal because the fifteenth-century aisles were rebuilt with higher roofs. The nave retains a medieval wagon roof, a roof with a continuous curved or polygonal profile resembling the inside of a wagon. Tree-ring analysis dates it to the early fifteenth century.
The fifteenth-century aisles have higher Perpendicular roofs and broad, flatter pointed windows. Their enlargement increased the church’s capacity and may also have followed fire damage associated with Owain Glyndwr’s attack. The west end of the south aisle contains the tomb of Sir Walter Herbert, who died in 1568. Although little of his effigy survives, the tomb displays Renaissance workmanship.
Chancel and later interior
Twentieth-century chancel
The present chancel was built in a Gothic style between 1960 and 1964. Its east wall carries a 1964 design by John Piper, a large painted dossal, or decorative panel behind an altar, with red, white, black, and grey forms suggesting marble. Above it is a round window with double-cross tracery. Patrick Reyntiens made the window’s abstract gold and yellow glass with silver-stain detailing, while Peter Courtier painted Piper’s design on canvas.
Medieval chancel features
A low thirteenth-century window in the chancel’s north wall was relocated from the earlier chancel. Tradition identifies it as the opening through which lepers watched services, although that interpretation remains uncertain. The medieval chancel entrance formerly had a rood screen, a church partition carrying a loft and crucifix, together with a large crucifix. Doorways associated with the loft survive high on the south-west side of the chancel and at ground level. A modern crucified Christ by the Singaporean artist Tay Swee Siong now hangs in the chancel arch.
Memorials and furnishings
The east end of the north aisle, in Crindau Chapel, contains a memorial brass to Octavius Morgan, who was a Member of Parliament and Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries and lived from 1803 to 1885. A nearby stained-glass window bears the arms of the Morgan family and of the dioceses of Gloucester and Llandaff, which formerly held rights over St Woolos. A statue of Gwynllyw holding up a church stands in a niche in the last column of the nave’s south arcade. It commemorates Noel Morris, who died in 1967. Its possible attribution to Elizabeth Frink is not supported by artistic or documentary evidence.
Most of the stained glass dates from the Victorian or Edwardian periods. Works by John Hardman and Company include images of the Good Samaritan, Christ blessing children, and Gwynllyw, Gwladys, and Cadoc. Several windows were altered by removing their decorative backgrounds. The organ remains a historically composite instrument, rebuilt in 1966 and 1997 from elements of earlier organs, including material from Newport Old Town Hall.
Later hall and cathedral grounds
A modern hall was added on the cathedral’s north side in the early 1990s. Its windows are narrow and pointed, contrasting with the broad nineteenth-century Perpendicular-style windows of the nave. The cathedral grounds contain the Chartist memorial and the associated sculpture of large workman’s boots. The memorial commemorates ten Chartist victims buried in unmarked graves in the churchyard.
