History
The construction of the church in Portskewett began in the Norman period, perhaps in the 12th or early 13th century, when the nave and the chancel were built. Then, in the 16th century, a tower and a porch were erected. Victorian renovations from the 19th century did not bring much changes, only in 1818 a gallery (matroneum) was erected in the western part of the church.
Architecture
The church was built of grey and red local limestone and yellow sandstone for decorative details. It was situated on a flat strip of land between the hills to the north and the bank of the Severn Estuary to the south, not far from Caldicot Castle to the west. On its north side ran the road leading to Chepstow to the north-east, while the land on the opposite side in the Middle Ages may have been marshy, crisscrossed by numerous streams and canals.
In the 12th/13th century the church consisted of a rectangular nave and a narrower, shorter and lower, also rectangular chancel, both covered by separate gable roofs. Towards the end of the Middle Ages a quadrangular, not very high tower was built from the west with a projection of a north-east staircase turret. Also the southern entrance to the nave was preceded by a porch. The whole building created a typical spatial layout, very often found in rural parish churches, with a characteristic gradation of height from west to east.
The original entrance to the church was located not only in the southern wall, but also on the northern side, probably due to the road running through the village there. A quadrangular portal was placed there with a massive lintel with a bas-relief Greek cross and a semicircular tympanum, also bas-relief. The southern portal acquired a similar simple form. Initially, the church was lit by very small, semicircular windows, probably similar to the window in the chancel placed in the northern wall. In the 13th or early 14th century, larger windows filled with Y-shaped tracery were also inserted. In the 15th or 16th century, late Gothic windows with quadrangular frames filled with two-light tracery with cinquefoil motifs inscribed in ogee arches were introduced into the nave walls. The southern window was additionally decorated with stylized leaves carved in the spandrels.
Inside, the nave was separated from the chancel by a narrow arcade from the first stage of the church’s functioning, while the nave was separated from the tower ground floor by a Gothic pointed arcade. The Romanesque arcade, simply made without the use of ashlar, was closed in a semicircle. No part of the church was covered with a stone vault. In the Middle Ages, an open roof truss or wagon roofs could have been used.
Current state
St. Mary’s Church has retained the late Romanesque perimeter walls of the nave and chancel, and the late medieval tower and porch, which have not been significantly altered in the early modern period, thanks to which the church in Portskewett is today a very valuable building, marked with number one on the three-level scale of Welsh architectural monuments. Among the architectural details, the original window in the north wall of the chancel, the Romanesque north and south portals and the 13th/14th century two-light south window have survived. Inside, you can see both original arcades (the chancel arch and the arch under the tower), while most of the fittings are modern, apart from the 15th century baptismal font.
bibliography:
Newman J., The buildings of Wales, Gwent/Monmouthshire, London 2000.
Salter M., The old parish churches of Gwent, Glamorgan & Gower, Malvern 2002.