Holy Cross Church, Port Talbot

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Holy Cross Church
Chapel of Ease
Holy Cross Church, Port Talbot.jpg
Holy Cross Church, Port Talbot
51°35′28″N3°46′09″W / 51.59116°N 3.76908°W / 51.59116; -3.76908
Country Wales
Language(s)English
Denomination Church in Wales
Architecture
Functional statusRedundant
Heritage designationGrade II listed
Designated28 April 2000 [1]
Architect(s) Edward Haycock Sr.
Years built1827
Closed2008
Specifications
Capacity500 [1]
Administration
Parish Margam

Holy Cross Church, Port Talbot, also known locally as the "Chapel of Ease", is a Victorian church located centrally in the Taibach district of Port Talbot, Wales. [2] Prior to the building of the M4 motorway flyover through the centre of the town in the 1960s, it was in the centre of a residential area, but it is now dominated by junction 40 of the motorway. [3] The land was originally donated by C. R. M. Talbot, MP, the owner of the Margam Abbey estate, as a church for local people who could not get to the abbey itself to worship.

The church was built in 1827 [3] by the Shrewsbury architect Edward Haycock Sr., with William Bruce Knight as its first vicar, [4] and fell within the parish of Margam, as a chapel of ease to Margam Abbey. [5] It had a capacity of 500. [3]

After the building of St Theodore's Church, Port Talbot, Holy Cross became a subsidiary of the new parish of Taibach. [6] In 1903 Holy Cross was upgraded, with G. E. Halliday as architect, to bring it up to the standard of a parish church, [3] and a rood screen was added. [1]

The parents of the actor Anthony Hopkins were married at the church in 1936. [7]

Closure

The church closed at the end of December 2008 after part of the ceiling collapsed. It was declared redundant by the Archbishop of Wales, Barry Morgan, in 2009. [3]

The cemetery contains several war graves in the care of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission. [8]

A proposal to turn the church into a private residence met with opposition from those with relatives buried in the churchyard. It was then proposed to convert the building into a chapel of rest instead. [9] The chapel was taken over by a local funeral director in 2016. [10]

References

  1. 1 2 3 "Holy Cross Church, Port Talbot". British Listed Buildings. Retrieved 5 October 2020.
  2. ↑ Geoffrey R. Orrin (2004). Church Building and Restoration in Victorian Glamorgan: An Architectural and Documentary Study. University of Wales Press. p. 101.
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 "Holy Cross Church, Taibach (414438)". Coflein. RCAHMW . Retrieved 17 September 2020.
  4. ↑ "The National Library of Wales, Knight, William Bruce (1785–1845), Welsh scholar, ecclesiastic, and administrator: Dictionary of Welsh Biography" . Retrieved 17 September 2020.
  5. ↑ Port Talbot Historical Society (1965). Transactions.
  6. ↑ "History". The Parish of St Theodore, Port Talbot. Retrieved 18 September 2020.
  7. ↑ Michael Feeney Callan (1993). Anthony Hopkins: In Darkness and Light. Sidgwick & Jackson. p. 19.
  8. ↑ "Port Talbot (Holy Cross) Churchyard". CWGC. Retrieved 18 September 2020.
  9. ↑ Jenny Hunt. "Holy Cross Church, Taibach, near Margam". trysor.net. Retrieved 5 October 2020.
  10. ↑ "Chapel of Rest". Port Talbot Funeral Service. Retrieved 5 October 2020.
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