Church of St. Francis of Assisi RC

Heritage listing

Reason for designation: Of considerable architectural interest as a strikingly designed and very unaltered Catholic church of 1960. History: Built in 1960 and designed by F R Bates Son and Price, the most interesting of a series of Roman Catholic churches built in Cardiff suburbs at that time. Exterior: The west front of the church is built of faced but entirely random (i.e. crazy-paving) limestone rubble with rendering in part of the gable. The rest of the walling is rendered, probably over blockwork, tiled main roof, copper roofs to the dormers. The church has a reinforced concrete frame but this is not expressed externally expcept in the tower. The plan is west entrance into the main church through a narthex, north-east vestry and clergy rooms, south meeting rooms and confessionals, south-west tower. The west elevation has a wide gable over an open porch carried on four piloti on the left and with blind walling on the right. This walling carries a concrete sculpture of St. Francis s vision of Christ on the Cross by Adam Kossowski. The concrete framed doorway is central to the gable but not the porch. Above the porch the gable is rendered and has 3:2:2:1 square windows rising to the apex. To the right is the square, but tapering, open campanile with five stages. The south elevation has two steep dormers but is otherwise featureless. The north elevation has three windows rising into steep dormers, porch to the right and priest s door to the left. The east elevation has a low wrap around storey with tall windows above on either side lighting the sanctuary; the east wall is blind. Interior: The church has an extremely theatrical interior that is very characteristic of its date and is unaltered. The wide span roof is carried on a concrete cantilever frame with a gallery o

From Cadw under OGL v3.