All Saints' Church, Oystermouth, is an Anglican church in the

Diocese of Swansea and Brecon The Diocese of Swansea and Brecon is a Diocese of the Church in Wales, established in 1923 with Brecon Priory as the cathedral. The area of the diocese had formerly been the Archdeaconry of Brecon within the Diocese of St Davids. The dioce ...

, South Wales. It is located in

Mumbles Mumbles () is a headland sited on the western edge of Swansea Bay on the southern coast of Wales. Toponym Mumbles has been noted for its place names considered unusual, unusual place name. The headland is thought by some to have been named by ...

and is a

Grade II listed building In the United Kingdom, a listed building is a structure of particular architectural or historic interest deserving of special protection. Such buildings are placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, H ...

(listed 23 April 1952 as "a large church with substantial medieval fabric and good interior detail, including early medieval

piscina A piscina is a shallow basin placed near the altar of a church, or else in the vestry or sacristy, used for washing the communion vessels. The sacrarium is the drain itself. Lutherans and Anglicans usually refer to the basin, calling it a pisci ...

font In metal typesetting, a font is a particular size, weight and style of a ''typeface'', defined as the set of fonts that share an overall design. For instance, the typeface Bauer Bodoni (shown in the figure) includes fonts " Roman" (or "regul ...

, and C20 glass") The church stands on a hillside, not far from Oystermouth Castle. The building is estimated to have been built in the mid-12th century, having first been mentioned in writing in 1141. It originally consisted of a

tower A tower is a tall Nonbuilding structure, structure, taller than it is wide, often by a significant factor. Towers are distinguished from guyed mast, masts by their lack of guy-wires and are therefore, along with tall buildings, self-supporting ...

on its western side, a

nave The nave () is the central part of a church, stretching from the (normally western) main entrance or rear wall, to the transepts, or in a church without transepts, to the chancel. When a church contains side aisles, as in a basilica-type ...

, and a lower

chancel In church architecture, the chancel is the space around the altar, including the Choir (architecture), choir and the sanctuary (sometimes called the presbytery), at the liturgical east end of a traditional Christian church building. It may termi ...

; the former nave is now the south aisle. A porch was constructed on the northern side in the 19th century, and in 1873 an organ chamber and vestry were built, to the design of Richard Kyrke Penson. The church was substantially reconstructed in 1915, adding a new nave and chancel and a north aisle. The former chancel became the

Lady Chapel A Lady chapel or lady chapel is a traditional British English, British term for a chapel dedicated to Mary, mother of Jesus, particularly those inside a cathedral or other large church (building), church. The chapels are also known as a Mary chape ...

. Oak panels for the altar in the Lady Chapel were carved in 1937 by the Revd J. D. Davies. The stained glass in the church includes a memorial window, commemorating the Mumbles lifeboat disaster of 1947; it shows lifeboatmen at work and was designed by Glantawe Studios and installed in 1977. There are memorials in the churchyard to the eight members of the Mumbles lifeboat crew who were killed in the incident. The most notable grave in the churchyard is that of the English doctor and editor

Thomas Bowdler Thomas Bowdler (; 11 July 1754 – 24 February 1825) was an English physician known for publishing '' The Family Shakespeare'', an expurgated edition of William Shakespeare's plays edited by his sister Henrietta Maria Bowdler. The two sought ...

, who died in Swansea in 1825.

References

{{Coord, 51.5739, -3.9976, type:landmark_region:GB, display=title Grade II listed churches in Swansea 12th-century church buildings in Wales Mumbles

Further reading

References