Church of Our Lady and St Michael, Abergavenny

Abergavenny remained a Catholic stronghold in the years after the Reformation and its first Catholic church was built on Frogmore Street.[1] This was replaced as the town's main Catholic church by Our Lady and St Michael's in 1860.[1] The construction of the church was funded by a local solicitor, John Baker Gabb, and the architect was Benjamin Bucknall.[2] Bucknall was engaged on the building of Woodchester Mansion, Gloucestershire, for another Catholic client, William Leigh, and, aged only 25, was seen as a coming man in Catholic architectural circles. Bucknall's intellectual and architectural influences were the work and ideas of Augustus Pugin – he converted to Catholicism in the year of Pugin's death – and the French Gothic Revival architect Eugène Viollet-le-Duc, with whom Bucknall was in regular correspondence.[3]

The church is constructed in Decorated Gothic style, with an accompanying Tudor Gothic presbytery.[2] Built of Old Red Sandstone, with Bath Stone dressings and slate roofs,[1] the church comprises a nave, North and South aisles and a chancel.[4] An intended "grand tower and spire" were never built.[2]

Simon Jenkins describes the church as "a bold composition of church and presbytery."[5] The interior of the church is largely unchanged since its construction with all its original Victorian furniture and furnishings intact.[1] The presbytery is similarly unspoilt.[1] The church also has "an exceptionally fine collection of medieval and later vestments".[4]

• Jenkins, Simon (2008). Wales: Churches, Houses, Castles. London: Penguin. ISBN 978-0-713-99893-1.
• Newman, John (2000). Gwent/Monmouthshire. The Buildings of Wales. London: Penguin. ISBN 0-14-071053-1.

• Media related to Church of Our Lady and St Michael, Abergavenny at Wikimedia Commons