page_title: St Padarn's Church, Llanbadarn Fawr
section_title: The south transept (the chapel of St Padarn and exhibition)
hierarchical_section_title: St Padarn's Church, Llanbadarn Fawr / Architecture / The south transept (the chapel of St Padarn and exhibition)
caption_attribution_description: English: Drawings of the pre-Christian standing stones at St Padarn's Church, Llanbadarn Fawr, from Sir Samuel Meyrick's, "History and Antiquities of the County of Cardigan" (1810).jpg
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 transepts have boarded ceilings with heavier ribs, and three by six panels, each panel subdivided in four, with brattishing and a band of quatrefoils to the wall-plate. Each transept has pointed tomb recesses in the end wall.
  The south transept (popularly known as Capel y Dre [the Chapel of the Town] or Capel Aberystwyth) is now a museum and chapel of St Padarn. This was built 1985–1988, in the space of the old transept, to designs by Peter Lord, with work by a number of notable craftspeople. It was an initiative of the town rather than of the church. The exhibition depicts the rich history of the area, with displays on St Padarn, and local people like William Morgan. A facsimile copy of Morgan's Bible is displayed there. Another display tells the life story of Sulien. There are three niches or recesses, which may once have held the monumental effigies of some of its priests, but no effigies remain. The two larger niches are in the central chapel; a smaller niche houses the altar stone in the chapel of St Padarn, to the left.
  A pitch pine screen with etched glass panels of winter and spring leads to the new rooms in the transept. The screen contains lines from the poetry of Dafydd ap Gwilym, who is regarded as one of the leading Welsh poets and amongst the great poets of Europe in the Middle Ages. Dafydd ap Gwilym wrote his famous poem "The Girls of Llanbadarn" ("Merched Llanbadarn") about the church in the mid-fourteenth century. There is a ceramic coat of arms set into the screen on the right-hand side, with the motto "Gorau Gorchwyl Gwarchod" ("Best reference for protection").
  The church contains two ancient carved stone crosses, since 1987 in the south transept. They were formally (before 1916) on display opposite the entrance to the south porch. Earlier still, before 1830, they had been situated in the angle between the south transept and the nave. One in particular shows strong Irish and Viking influence. The first of the crosses is short and squat, with clear arms to each side, in a style reminiscent of pagan "Earth Mother" figurines. It has a crude roll-mould border to a roughly hewn cross. It is much eroded but has one crude human figure with spiral across the body; it may be late tenth century.
  The second cross is tall and slender, a free standing monolith pillar-cross, with a slender rounded shaft (changing to square above) and a free armed head formed by notching the shaft. It is carved with figures in traditional Welsh style. One figure in particular, which looks much like the figure of a saint, is inscribed low on the north face. The Cross of St Padarn is granophyre and has Celtic interlace in panels down one face. It is uncertainly dated between the ninth and eleventh century. Though not comparable with the great Irish high crosses, it shows sophisticated carving, and willingness to bring the stone from the Mawdddach estuary, Gwynedd.
  In the centre room of the transept there is a low slate slab altar stone, with an etched red Chi-Ro emblem, with Alpha and Omega incised. A Chi-ro is an early form of Christogram, and is formed by the super imposition of the first two letters of the Greek alphabet onto a circle. There is a rough Cornish granite monolith seat and prie-dieu, which with the altar stone are inset with gold-enamelled small tiles by Andrew Rowe. The wall plaster has an incised red line. There is a white glazed tiled floor with red tile border around the two early Celtic crosses. In the south wall above the stone crosses are 1920s/1930s windows representing Saints Padarn, Dewi and (in the centre and above) Teilo. The Padarn window is a single-light window with a standing figure of St Padarn holding a staff and chalice, with a valley and hills behind him. It was given in memory of members of the Bonsall family, and was made by the Heaton, Butler & Bayne, London, around 1930, thus preceding Peter Lord's work on the transept.
  The staff borne by St Padarn in the window is probably intended to represent Curwen, which was revered at Llangorwen. It was given to him by the Patriarch of Jerusalem, along 
caption: Nineteenth century drawings of the pre-Christian Celtic standing stones at St Padarn's Church, Llanbadarn Fawr
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