Llanrhystud - Old Church

It was thus a poor community already pressed for ready money which undertook this relatively enormous commitment to rebuild its parish church. How did the parishioners go about it? The decision was taken by the Vestry, in which the leading figures were the vicar, the two churchwardens, and the leading farmers. The incumbent of the vicarage of Llanrhystud and the rectory of Rhosdie was John Lewis, a native of Llangwyryfon, who had been appointed to the living by its patron, the bishop of St. David's, in 1834.8 In 1851 he was fifty years of age and lived at Rhiwgoch with his wife, six children, four farm--servants, a dairy maid, and a housemaid -a household, it should be noted, containing as many servants as Mabws. As livings went in Cardiganshire it was rather above the average, being worth £170 a year (excluding other minor sources of income) which was the amount allowed him by the appropriators, the Precentor and Chapter of the cathedral, out of the £620 for which the tithes were commuted.9 As vicar, he was the ecclesiastical ruler of the parish and presided at the vestry meetings. Assisting him were the two wardens, elected annually by the parish, and who were therefore men of quite considerable influence with whom he would have to co-operate closely and without whom nothing of importance concerning the ecclesiastical govern-ment of the parish could be done. In 1851, these were Richard Thomas, one of the village shopkeepers, and Even Herbert of Brynffosydd, a farmer of 6o acres, the farm being rented of the Reverend James Morris.10 These two had been wardens for a number of years and had been responsible for raising and spending a penny rate (which brought in a little more than £9) on the church fairly regularly during that period. The last rate had been raised in March 185l shortly before they had been confirmed in office.11 These ordinary meetings of the parish seem never to have been heavily attended, and it does not appear that the most substantial families put in regular appearances.

The decision to rebuild was taken at a special vestry held on 30 April 1851 when it was 'unanimously resolved that the present church being in a dilapidated state and not fit to be repaired, it should be pulled down and re-built -and that the Parish should contribute £500 to be raised by a rate during the present year and the remaining Four Houndred Pounds to be borrowed and repaid by annual installments of no less than One Houndred Pounds to be levied on the Parish by rates'. It is interesting to note that a specific sum of £900 is mentioned, and in the absence of further information one must assume that this was based on some kind of estimate of the cost of rebuilding supplied locally, or else was thought to be the greatest sum which the parish could be expected to contribute. The Diocesan Building Society was not formed until 1883 so that there was no local body poseessed of the essential expertise to whom the committee could have turned.12 To get the sum proposed into perspective one has only to recollect that £560 was what was currently being levied for the Poor Rate, so that the parish were committing themselves to a sum equal to the Poor Rate with the additional sum of £110 per annum over a period of four years. At that same meeting John Hughes, Esq., of Alltwyd, the vicar, Mr. Davies, Ffynonhywel, Mr. David Jones, Tregynen, and Mr. Davies, Pentre Mawr, along with the two wardens, were nomin-ated as a Building Committee. John Hughes, as the squire of Alltlwyd, was obviously the most influential person on the committee, and it is likely that it was his drive and generosity which made the rebuilding possible. The absence of any member of the Mabws family is striking: Captain Phillips, the head of the family, was to take a minor part in the closing stages of the proceedings, but initially he appears to have had nothing to do with it. David Jacob Davies, of Pentre Mawr, a farm of 110 acres, was a Llanddeiniol man married to a Llanrhystud woman who appears to have settled in the parish some ten years previously. The important thing to note about him is that he was a Methodist. William Prydderch, the Methodist minister lodged in his house, as did John Roberts, a teacher in the British School. This requires to be stressed as illustrative of the unanimity of the parish with regard to the project, and the readiness of nonconformists to tax themselves heavily in behalf of a church from which they were formally separated. David Jones, of Tregynan Isaf, a farm of 150 acres was a widower aged 64 years who may (on the tenuous evidence of a very common name) have acted as a church-warden in the past.13

This Building Committee now worked very quickly -so quickly that one suspects that much of forward planning had already been done, probably by Mr. Hughes and the vicar, before the meeting of the Vestry. First, the wardens would have petitioned for a faculty to rebuild: these documents have not survived: and for a licence to perform divine service in the school room in the interim. This latter was granted on 24 July.14 Second, fairly firm decisions on the size and type of building to be erected must have been taken, an estimate of the costs, and an architect chosen. It is clear that it was a simple rebuilding that was envisaged: the old church would be taken down and rebuilt substantially in its old form, consisting, as it did, of a nave, chancel, tower, porch and belfry. The architect chosen was Richard Kyrke Penson. This was a very remarkable choice. Thirty five years of age, he had only recently settled in Oswestry after training in London, where he became F.S.A. and F.R.I.B.A., in this following his father, Thomas Penson, F.R.I.B.A., the Wrexham architect. He had already achieved some distinction as a painter, and was a founder-member of the Water-colour Society. Later he was to be responsible for rebuilding many Cardiganshire churches and houses, among them Llanfihangel-y-Creuddyn, Llanilar, the National Schools at Aberystwyth, alterations and additions to Bronwydd, and Llidiardau, the new residence for F. R. Roberts near Aberystwyth. But at this point in his career he was relatively unknown, and it may have been through his father, who was Surveyor for the Central Wales counties, that his name was brought to the attention of the Building committee. The rebuilding of Llanrhystud church un-doubtedly helped to establish his reputation.15 From the beginning, the Building Committee relied a great deal on the Incorporated Church Building Society. Founded in 1818 as 'The Society for Promoting the Enlargement and Building of Churches and Chapels', and incorporated by Act of Parliament in 1828,16 it was the premier voluntary Church of England society, one of the three philan-thropic organizations authorized to issue the Queen's Letters (the successor to the Royal Briefs) in support of its fund-raising activities. In 1851 its resources were strained to the uttermost, and in that very same month when Llanrhystud's case came before it it was preparing to petition the Queen for permission to issue her Letter directing collections to be made in churches in its behalf.17 Between 1829 and 1851 the Society had made grants totaling 1,835 to Cardiganshire churches, so that its operations were well-known and well-publicized. -Its secretary, the Reverend John Bowdler, was the son of the famous John Bowdler, one of the founders of the Society, and nephew of the even more famous, if not notorious, Thomas Bowdler, whose expurgated edition of Shakespeare had given the phrase 'to bowdlerize' to the English language and who had lived for many years before his death at Oystermouth, Swansea. John Bowdler was a typical Evangelical churchman deeply involved in the philanthropic movements of his age, an unbending anti-Tractarian, and an outstanding example of the new ecclesiastical bureaucrat which church reform was producing at that time.18 There were two reasons why the committee should have turned to the Incorporated Society. First, because they hoped for a grant in aid, and second, because the Society could give them expert advice at all stages in what was an undertaking of major importance. Perhaps it was advice that was most needed in the early stages -advice, for instance, as to where to raise a mortgage and on what terms.19

By the end or May Penson had visited Llanrhystud and had sent his plans and estimates to the Society, followed a few days later by a formal application for a grant by the vicar.20 Penson's plan was for a church in the Decorated style, consisting of nave, chancel, vestry and porch, with a tower, bell-turret and a spire. It was designed to provide seating for 174, all of them appropriated, with additional space for 72 children under the tower. If the vicar's calculations as recorded in his application were correct, this represented an addition of 54 seats-though according to his second application a year later the old church had contained room for 160, of which 60 were Free. The estimate for the cost of the building and fittings was £1,630, plus the architect's fee of £80 and £52 for the clerk or the works- a total of £1,762 or £1,732 after deducting £30 as the value of the old materials. Well might the vicar plead for a generous grant from the Society. The total moneys received or promised to date was only £960.- £500 from the rates and £460 in subscriptions-leaving a deficit of £772. Of the money subscribed, John Hughes of Alltlwyd had given £200, the bishop £100, and the remainder in smaller sums collected or given by well-wishers such as the Reverend Sir George Prevost, the eminent Tractarian and friend of Isaac Williams who appears to have been known to John Hughes.21

The Committee of the Society, having studied the plans and con-sidered the correspondence decided on 23 June to make a grant of £50 towards the cost or condition that additional accommodation for 126 persons be obtained including 72 seats for the use of the poor for ever'.22 This was by no means a very generous grant, and the local committee could not have been particularly impressed. The Society, however, were certainly impressed by the case itself and in their Third Quarterly Report they drew attention to it as illustrating perfectly the basic problems or rural religion and the need for sub-stantial aid for such places-more than the current state of their finances permitted. 'Many of the Churches in Wales are in a much more deplorable condition than any in England, and yet, like those in the latter country, are susceptible of complete restoration. The Church of Llanrhystud - - is now in a very dilapidated state, with the exception of the tower, which is of massive construction', and indeed the drawings of the old church and the projected new one illustrated vividly both the problem and the possibilities.23 These illustrations and this publicity, however, had quite unexpected results: they came into the hands of two important figures in the church at that time, namely, the Reverend John Allen, Archdeacon of Salop, and the Reverend Isaac Williams, vicar of Stinchcombe, near Dursley. The latter's concern is understandable. He was a Leading Tractarians, it is true, but on the issue of church-room Tractarians and evangelicals saw more or less eye to eye, and his criticism of the projected building was, first, that it was too small for a parish of 1800 people, and, second, that the rules or the Society were being contravened insofar as all the seats would be appropriated. Isaac Williams had gone so far as to inform the vicar that he would assist them 'only on the supposition of there being room for the poor and [would] do nothing for them unless this object were provided for'. Coming from the famous son of a Powerful local family -the Williamses of Llanrhystud and Cwmcynfelin- this was a serious blow to the Building Committee, and more importantly reminded the Church Building Society of Rule 8 of their 'Laws and regulations which stated quite unequivocally that 'no grant be made unless one half, at least, of the increased area and accommodation proposed, be secured for additional free and unappropriated sittings for ever'.24 The other objection -that of Archdeacon Allen- was perhaps less fundamental but was even more bothersome. John Allen was one of those archetypal mid-Victorian churchmen -of good, landed family, highly educated, extremely well-connected, zealous in all good works, the apotheosis of the new managerial type of archdeacon. He was the personal friend of bishops, poets, writers, architects, politicians and in ecclesiastical affairs, therefore, one whose views could not be ignored, least of all by a philanthropic society so dependent upon the hierarchy for its success. To boot, he was a Welshman, and his objection was to the style of building proposed for the new church- 'You must know', he wrote, 'that I am a Welshman, and miserably dilapidated as I doubt not that Llanrhystyd church is, yet what person with any sense of fitness and local character can view without regret the proposed transformation that your paper depicts so vividly? -cannot the old Tower be retained? -must it be pierced with freestone windows of the newest pattern of sham antique? Why, the proposed restoration appears like the last erection of Turnham Green or some other sub-urban school of the revival of Gothic architecture, instead of being fitted for the bluff position of the old weather-beaten and venerable structure. The prettiness of the ornaments of the wall of the chancel arch and the affectation of buttresses for the support of the new porch seem to be, for such a situation, considering what at present exists absolutely detestable'. Beneath this fine aesthetic rage, of course, were some hard, combustible motives which the Society could least of all afford to neglect and which its secretary would warm to, namely a distrust of the Gothic revival as all expression in stone of Anglo Catholicism, and a concern for prudence in money matters. Preserving the ancient character of Llanrhystud would perhaps (though he did not say this in so many words) preserve the parish from the infection of Llangorwen, and 'save the outlay of much needless cost ' Penson's design, he added, with more bitterness than charity, would be 'an enduring monument of [the parishioners'] having more money than wit.

This protest against the destruction of a genuine antique in order to erect a sham antique was not to be ignored, and Bowdler was clearly shaken. With Allen's permission he sent his letter to an architect in whom the committee of the Society (and Allen) had every confidence - namely, to James P. Harrison, one of the leading ecclesiastical archi-tects of the time, much employed by the Society. Predictably enough, Harrison agreed with Allen. He could see no good reason, when funds permitted, why experiment in building new Welsh churches should not be attempted, but in the case of Llanrhystud he felt that 'the old Tower.. would feel both indignant and uncomfortable in its English clothes. A pyramidical Tower does not require buttresses and its very form guides the eye with sufficient grace & ease to the point of an ordinary Welsh spire'. The bellcote he thought pretty and appropriate on the old building but pretentious on what was virtually a new and much taller building. There were other criticisms too: the gables did not suit the elevation, and the sides or the porch roof rose above the eaves of the nave, and he was doubtful whether the old church could ever have had a spire. Harrison sent a sketch of his idea for the new church, and when this was forwarded to Allen it was received with rapture -'a work of real genius'. Unfortunately, this sketch has not survived, and we are left wondering what Llanrhystud would have looked like if Harrison had had his way.26

Copies of this correspondence -without, of course, disclosing their origin- were sent to Penson who, in his characteristically brusque way dismissed them out of hand. Had Harrison known that the floor of the church would have to be raised by at least four feet he would not have gone on about the elevations, and the archdeacon should not let his feelings for things Welsh run away with his judgment.