St Donat, St Donats
St Donat, St Donats
The Church of St Donat is a Grade I listed Church in Wales church in the cwm below the west side of St Donat's Castle, Vale of Glamorgan, in the Diocese of Llandaff.
- Location
- St Donats, Glamorgan
- Country
- Wales
- County
- Glamorgan
- City / town
- St Donats
- Address
- St Donats, Glamorgan, CF61 1WF
- Postcode
- CF61 1WF
- Built
- C12 origin; tower early C14; Lady Chapel late C14; chancel C15; nave C16; restored 1878 and 1907
- Denomination
- Church in Wales
- Dedication
- Donat
- Diocese
- Llandaff
- Parish
- St Donats
- Grade
- I
- Style
- Medieval
- Materials
- Roughly coursed local lias limestone rubble with dressed quoins; Welsh slate roofs
- Grid reference
- SS 934 681
- Opening hours
- Open 24 hours. Entry to the church is located in the grounds of Atlantic College. To visit by car, it is necessary to stop and register at the Main Reception. You can then drive to the church. There is parking for a few cars. Walkers can reach the church via the West Gate of the College which is a public footpath (no parking there), and which is included in Vale Coastal Walks (online) from Marcross or Nash Point.
- Access
- The church stands in the grounds of Atlantic College. Visitors arriving by car should register at Main Reception before driving on; walkers can use the West Gate public footpath.
Overview
Cadw records an originally small twelfth-century church with an apsed chancel. The tower was added in the early fourteenth century, the Lady Chapel (now the Stradling Chapel) in the late fourteenth, the chancel rebuilt in the fifteenth century and the nave in the sixteenth. The body of the church was restored in 1878 for Dr Nicholl-Carne; the tower was reconstructed in 1907 under Morgan Stuart Williams, supervised by G. E. Halliday, the diocesan architect. The fabric is roughly coursed local lias limestone rubble with dressed quoins and Welsh slate roofs of two colours.
The plan is a nave with north porch, chancel with Stradling memorial chapel on the north-west, and a south-west tower. The interior retains a semi-circular Norman chancel arch with angle columns, a Norman font with two rows of small-scale pattern, and lower and upper stone rood-loft doors. The late fourteenth-century Lady Chapel was converted to the Stradling Chapel in the late sixteenth century and holds painted family portrait memorials of about 1590 (now photographic copies) commissioned by Sir Edward Stradling. Cadw grades the church as an important early medieval building with a particularly fine Stradling Chapel and historic associations with the castle.