By 1839 the population of Welshpool had grown to 6,000. Concern was expressed at the small number of free seats in St Mary’s parish church, a deficiency most felt by ‘the poor and labouring classes’. In the same year, Viscount Clive, the eldest son of the Earl of Powis, was due to come of age and some kind of memorial was thought to be needed. A group of local citizens and gentry including the Vicar, the Rev’d William Clive, decided the two should be combined and a subscription was launched. Lord Powis donated a site on the edge of the castle park, where the building might no doubt provide a handsome feature. Thomas Penson was asked to design it.

The church is built of large stone blocks from a local quarry and adornment is confined to simple nail-head above the windows, heavy chevron over the west door and rows of plain, prominent corbels. The arch of the big south porch has alternate voussoirs that project downwards like blunt teeth. This is confident, assertive architecture which will alienate many but commands respect. 

The contract of 1840 states that the upper portions of the tower should be built ‘so as to admit of an octagonal spire being erected on such tower should a spire at some future period be deemed eligible’. Two water colour drawings housed at Shropshire Archives show alternative versions: one with a pyramidal roof like the one Penson used at Llanymynech; the other with a more elegant spire. They appear to originate from Penson’s studio: one is inscribed on the back ‘Spire 100 l extra’. 

Three windows at the east end of the south aisle have more elaborate surrounds in a reddish sandstone: they were rebuilt in 1918-19 when a memorial window was installed to the fourth Earl’s eldest son who fell in the First World War.

The effect is rather clumsy, but this must be among the earliest instances of terracotta in nineteenth century church architecture: it demonstrates the potential of the material for reproducing ornamentation at minimal cost. Similar terracotta panels are set above the tower and chancel arches and in their soffits. 

Over each column of the arcade is a small head: these are differentiated and individually moulded. Penson would introduce similar variations in other churches. But as the use of terracotta developed, mass production would become the norm. 

The large clerestory windows, like those in the aisles, have round arches and plain surrounds with a simple hoodmould. Externally they are evenly spaced: internally they appear to be grouped in threes with a blank arch in the centre. They flood the nave with light.

Penson gave his church the short chancel typical of those built before the reforms of the mid-nineteenth century. It takes the form of a semi-circular apse, and here his use of terracotta becomes more convincing and produces a richer effect. The walls have been painted and this may have caused the detail to be described as stone: in fact it must be terracotta. There is a lower tier of blank arcading with round arches and zig-zag; a triforium of intersecting arches and a clerestory of three large windows with more zig-zag, flanked by cylindrical shafts. Some of the mouldings in the triforium appear identical to those used externally on the porch of Llangedwyn Church.

Above is a three-bay vault composed of moulded ribs and panels entirely of terracotta: the panels appear to consist of yellow floor tiles similar to those manufactured by John Howells of Trefarclawdd, near Oswestry, who may be presumed to have supplied the other material: his bricks were used in the building of St David’s, Newtown. (See the page on Terracotta on this website.) 

Framed as it is by the tall, cylindrical columns of the chancel arch the apse is an attractive and well-proportioned composition in a novel material.

The nave on the other hand is bare of ornamentation other than previously described: details around the windows in the south aisle were added in the twentieth century as described above.

A correspondent to the County Times wrote in 1897:

The church was designed by the County Surveyor of that date - the late Thomas Penson, an architect of no mean ability - and, as all are aware, is an imposing structure of the [basilican?] type, built in the Romanesque style. The proportions of the interior are noble; but, alas! the materials used and the fittings erected are of the basest and ugliest kind. Added to these imperfections there is absolutely no scheme of colour-decoration, cold grey concrete covering the walls, cold grey fire-bricks for the arch- mouldings, cold grey flag stones for the flooring, and no coloured glass in the clerestory lights!

The walls were later painted white. 

Comparable fittings can be seen at St John’s Church, Rhosllanerchrugog.

It is unclear whether the splendid font is by Penson: it is of moulded material but its composition and design differ from other work in the church. It was given by the Vicar.

In 1846 the three arches behind the altar were filled with the Ten Commandments, Creed and Lord’s Prayer, painted by Mr Bowen of Shrewsbury on a gilt ground. The window above received stained glass by David Evans, the gift of Lord Clive. The apse has fine encaustic tiles.

The church may originally have had box pews: the correspondent of 1897 had criticised ‘the ghastly, ugly, uncomfortable, un-devotional (no one can kneel in them) sittings, which dwarf the height of the church and obscure the piers’. The present pews, with simple poppy-heads, appear not to meet this description, even though they are described elsewhere as being contemporary with the church. 

The finely carved stalls in the choir were installed by the fourth Earl as a memorial to his wife who died in a motor accident in 1929. 

A living unit has been constructed at the west end of the nave providing accommodation for Karl, Natalie and their three sons. Its design respects the character of the building. The body of the church with its fine organ will be available for concerts and cultural events.

Christ Church is normally open for visits on Fridays between 12.00 and 3.00 and on the first Sunday of the month from 1.00 to 4.00. Please see https://www.christchurchwelshpool.co.uk/ for further details.

Text: John Hainsworth