page_title: St Padarn's Church, Llanbadarn Fawr
section_title: The chancel
hierarchical_section_title: St Padarn's Church, Llanbadarn Fawr / Architecture / The chancel
caption_attribution_description: English: South transept, east side, showing join to crossing and chancel
context_page_description: Saint Padarn's Church is a parish church of the Church in Wales, and the largest mediaeval church in mid-Wales.
  Founded in the early sixth century, St Padarn's Church has gone through many changes, from a Welsh monastic centre, a Benedictine priory, a clas again, a royal rectory, a church controlled by Chester's Vale Royal Abbey, and since 1538 a parish church under a vicar. It is at Llanbadarn Fawr, near Aberystwyth, in Ceredigion, Wales, United Kingdom.
context_section_description: The interior consists of chancel, nave, transepts and south porch, and is formed of rough materials, now largely plastered and whitewashed.
  The large chancel was restored around 1475, primarily it would appear by extending it and adding new red sandstone Perpendicular segmental-pointed side windows, one three-light and one single-light to the south and one three-light to the north – all now with nineteenth century tracery and stained glass. The window is Gothic equilateral.
  An inscription in the left side window jamb of the east window in the south wall of the chancel may be a contemporary memorial to William Stratford; it is the word "Stratford", with a coat of arms with a rebus of the letter "W" and an abbot's crozier set behind the "W", with two four-leaved flowers either side. Below this window, now partly obscured by a credence table, is a mediaeval piscina. Another inscription, possibly late fifteenth century, is in the right window jamb of the easternmost north wall window. This is to Thomas ap Dafydd, proctor, and his wife Angharad. The great five-light east window is also of red stone, with nineteenth century late Gothic style tracery.
  There is an ornate semi-circular wooden ceiling with smaller panels along the ridge, moulded ribs and carved bosses, and brattished cornice each side above a row of little fan-vaults separating seven half-round panels with shield-bearing angels. The ceiling is finely finished with bosses at the intersection of the moulded principals and purlins. It was inserted in 1882–84.
  This ceiling conceals the mediaeval trusses of the fifteenth century ceiling. The wagon roof over the chancel was boarded or plastered, as slots in the principals show, in 1491 by William Stratford, DTh, Abbot of Vale Royal Abbey (in post 1476–1516, with gaps); the exact dating was derived from the timbers, which retain complete sapwood. The original ceiling can still be reached from the ringing chamber in the central tower, and includes an arch-braced collar-beam truss, with traces of five cross-ribs equally spaced on the soffit of the four-centred moulded arch. The truss had slots for the panels of a boarded ceiling (a wagon roof).
  The entrance to the chancel from the crossing has a red marble step, with mosaic, and Minton encaustic tile panels of a three-branch lamp, then another marble step and black marble main chancel flooring in small paving slabs. In the sanctuary there are a further three marble steps, with paving of pink marble with black in square or zigzag patterns.
  There are three small square-panelled doors to the north wall of the chancel. One is at the base of the former rood loft stair, and this may be followed up a mural staircase built into the thickness of the wall, to a second door, which is high on the wall to the left. This would have been the entrance to the rood loft itself. The two doors are of slightly different style; the lower door has a triangular form not seen elsewhere in the church, suggesting early Tudor work. The upper door, which would originally have led to a loft, is a four-centred arch, possibly late Gothic, probably late fifteenth to early sixteenth century. The two could be contemporaneous with the work in the rest of the chancel. 
  The third door is a vestry door further right, leading to the small gabled north priests' vestry. It is of uncertain age and could be of nineteenth century origin. It now includes a modern brick chimney stack.). The priests' vestry in turn leads to the later nineteenth century choir sacristy or vestry. This is a slight lean-to structure, with timber glazing to the roof in two levels, and is built, none too elegantly, between the east end of the north transept and the original priests' vestry.
  Opposite the internal doors, in the south wall, there is a plain pointed priest's door with cut stone voussoirs, by Seddon, with wrought iron hinges.
  The 1880s Seddon high altar has a fine reredos across the east wall in red sandstone and white marble. There is red stone outer wall-panelling in squares of rose and vine, in a moulded frame. A white marble s
caption: South transept, east side, showing join to crossing and chancel
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