St Margaret's Church (dedicated to St

Margaret of Antioch Margaret, known as Margaret of Antioch in the West, and as Saint Marina the Great Martyr ( grc-gre, Ἁγία Μαρίνα) in the East, is celebrated as a saint on 20 July in the Western Rite Orthodoxy, Roman Catholic Church and Anglicanism, o ...

) is a nineteenth-century

Church in Wales The Church in Wales ( cy, Yr Eglwys yng Nghymru) is an Anglican church in Wales, composed of six dioceses. The Archbishop of Wales does not have a fixed archiepiscopal see, but serves concurrently as one of the six diocesan bishops. The p ...

parish church in the suburb of

Roath Roath ( cy, Y Rhath) is a district and community to the north-east of the city centre of Cardiff, capital of Wales. There is no community council for the area which is mostly covered by the Plasnewydd electoral ward, and stretches from Adamsdo ...

Cardiff Cardiff (; cy, Caerdydd ) is the capital and largest city of Wales. It forms a principal area, officially known as the City and County of Cardiff ( cy, Dinas a Sir Caerdydd, links=no), and the city is the eleventh-largest in the United Kingd ...

Wales Wales ( cy, Cymru ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is bordered by England to the east, the Irish Sea to the north and west, the Celtic Sea to the south west and the Bristol Channel to the south. It had a population in ...

. It includes the mausoleum of the Marquises of Bute.

History

A church dedicated to St Margaret existed in

since the medieval period. It was a small

Perpendicular style Perpendicular Gothic (also Perpendicular, Rectilinear, or Third Pointed) architecture was the third and final style of English Gothic architecture developed in the Kingdom of England during the Late Middle Ages, typified by large windows, four-ce ...

building with a bell-turret at the western end.Memorial Inscriptions: Roath Church
British History Online (from
Cardiff Records, Volume 3
' John Hobson Matthews (ed.), 1901, pp. 545–552). Retrieved 22 August 2013. In 1800 a mausoleum was added, for the Marquises of Bute.Lynn F. Pearson
Mausoleums
Shire Publications Ltd. (2002), page 39. The church was completely demolished in 1868 to make way for a new replacement. The new church was completed, with a cruciform plan in a Decorated Gothic style. The plan had been designed by

Alexander Roos Alexander Roos ( – 30 June 1881) was an Italian-born British architect and urban planner. He was the architect to the Bute Estates in South Wales, for which he designed many buildings and laid out several areas of Cardiff. Early life Alexand ...

, architect to the Butes. The above ground church was designed by architect

John Prichard John Prichard (6 May 1817 – 13 October 1886) was a Welsh architect in the neo-Gothic style. As diocesan architect of Llandaff, he was involved in the building or restoration of many churches in south Wales. Personal history John Prichard wa ...

and financed by John Crichton-Stuart, 3rd Marquess of Bute, who dismissed Roos when he came of age in 1868.Diane A. Walker, 'A Guide to the Parish Church of St Margarets, Roath', Vicar & Churchwardens of the Parish of Roath (1994), pages 1–2. A wide variety of coloured bricks and coloured stone was used to decorate the internal walls, in red, blue, white, grey-green and pink. The church tower (without the spire envisaged by Prichard) was designed later by

John Coates Carter John Coates Carter (1859–1927) was an English architect. Born in Norwich, Carter is notable for his design and restoration to churches in South Wales, and in particular Glamorgan. He was partnered with John Pollard Seddon from 1884 to 1904 an ...

and completed in 1926. The glasswork of the church's east window was destroyed in a bomb-blast during the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposi ...

. The present glass, dating from 1952, depicts the

Ascension of Jesus The Ascension of Jesus (anglicized from the Vulgate la, ascensio Iesu, lit=ascent of Jesus) is the Christian teaching that Christ physically departed from Earth by rising to Heaven, in the presence of eleven of his apostles. According to th ...

, flanked by the patron saints of the four daughter churches: St Edward's, St Anne's, St Agnes's and St Philip's. Of these churches, only St Edward's still holds a daughter position. St Agnes's closed in 1966 and St Anne's in 2015. St Philip is still an operational church, but is no longer in the parish after the boundaries were adjusted in the late 20th century. The church was designated a Grade I

listed building In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern Irel ...

in 1975.

Bute mausoleum

An ornate north aisle chapel was added to the church between 1881 and 1886, as the new mausoleum for the Bute family tombs. Seven large

sarcophagi A sarcophagus (plural sarcophagi or sarcophaguses) is a box-like funeral receptacle for a corpse, most commonly carved in stone, and usually displayed above ground, though it may also be buried. The word ''sarcophagus'' comes from the Greek ...

in red granite, were added to contain the remains of the members of the Bute family who had been interred in the previous church.Diane A. Walker, 'A Guide to the Parish Church of St Margarets, Roath', Vicar & Churchwardens of the Parish of Roath (1994), pages 10–11. The original stone memorial plaques were included in the new tombs. Those interred in the sarcophagi are: * Charlotte Jane Windsor, Marchioness of Bute (1746–1800) – first wife of the first Marquess. *

John Stuart, 1st Marquess of Bute John Stuart, 1st Marquess of Bute PC, FRS (30 June 1744 – 16 November 1814), styled Lord Mount Stuart until 1792 and known as The Earl of Bute between 1792 and 1794, was a British nobleman, coalfield owner, diplomat and politician who sat in ...

(1744–1814) * Frances Coutts, Dowager Marchioness of Bute (1773–1832) – second wife of the first Marquess. *

John Stuart, Lord Mount Stuart {{Infobox noble , type = , name = John Stuart , title = Lord Mount Stuart , image = John, Lord Mountstuart MP (1767 - 1794 )by Thomas Lawrence.jpg , caption = John Stuart (study for ...

(1767–1794) * Gertrude Amelia Stuart (died 1809) – widow of Lord Henry Stuart. * Lord Henry Stuart (1777–1809) – a son of the first Marquess and Charlotte. * Elizabeth Penelope Stuart (1819–1822) – daughter of Lord James Stuart.

Daughter Churches

St Margaret's now has only one daughter church, this being the nearby St Edward's on Blenheim Road. It formerly had several others: *St Francis, Splott, opened in 1894, stood on Singleton Street and was built primarily to serve the workers of the copper, steel and ironworks of the East Moors area. It closed in 1969. *St Agnes, Roath, opened in 1886, served the area south of Broadway. It was later transferred to the Parish of St German's. Its altar is now in St Mary's Butetown. It closed in 1966, though the name survives as a chapel in St German's, where its war memorial, is now located. * St Anne's, Roath opened in 1887. It closed in 2015. *St Philip's, Tremorfa was founded in 1930 to serve what was then a new council estate. It was originally a hall, which was replaced in 1937 by a

tin tabernacle A tin tabernacle, also known as an iron church, is a type of prefabricated ecclesiastical building made from corrugated galvanised iron. They were developed in the mid-19th century initially in the United Kingdom. Corrugated iron was first us ...

which had itself formerly been St Joseph's, Gabalfa and St Alban's, Splott, both of which had been replaced by permanent buildings. It was replaced by a permanent building in 1966. It was separated from the Parish of Roath in the late 20th century and has been partnered with St Mark's, Gabalfa since 2004.

Gallery

File:St Margaret's Roath interior.jpg, Interior of St Margaret's File:Bute_Mausoleum,_Church_of_St_Margaret,_Roath.jpg, Bute Mausoleum File:Saint Philip's Church, Tremorfa, Cardiff - geograph.org.uk - 5442254.jpg, St Philips, Tremorfa

References

External links

St Margaret's Church, Roath Parish
{{DEFAULTSORT:Margaret, Saint, Church

Rebuilt church buildings in Wales Roath, St Margaret Roath, St Margaret Roath John Prichard buildings