Christ Church, Aberdare Road, Georgetown

Heritage listing

History: Opened April 1857. Designed by James S Benest, architect of Norwich and former Surveyor to the Merthyr Board of Health. Cost 2,677. Early Decorated style. Exterior: Plan of chancel flanked by organ chamber and vestries, transepts, aisled nave, W and S porches. Snecked facings with freestone dressings, slate roofs. Gable parapets with crucifix finials, modern bargeboards, diagonal buttresses with set-offs. 4-light traceried window to E wall, crowned headstops; dragon-stops to pointed doorway at SE angle. Twin, traceried lancets grouped with Westminster-derived oculi to transepts; multi-cusped, triangular clerestory windows; paired aisle windows with impaled cinquefoil heads. Ball-flower surround to W door with elaborate traceried rose-window over; richly foliated corbels to apex (formerly with bellcote). Interior: Spacious interior has arched-brace roof trusses with collars and carved polygonal corbels linked to ball-flower bands and hoods; cusped trusses to transepts. Transept arches linked to 3-bay nave arcade with alternating piers and wall-posts; flying timber arches to lean-to aisle roofs. High pair of foliage brackets to W gable end. E window glass of 1899 signed by E R Suffling of London. Location: Occupying a levelled site on hillside beside road.

From Cadw under OGL v3.