Trinity College (original range with additions), Carmarthen, Carmarthenshire

History

College buildings built as South Wales and Monmouthshire Training College, for teacher-training, in 1847-8 by Henry Clutton for the National Society for the Education of Children, the principal Anglican educational body. W.P. James was contractor and R.G. Thomas assistant architect. The tender price was £5,853, but some £9000 was spent. Original building in Puginian Gothic style, an early example in Wales, comprised principal's house to left, main range with dormitories for 60 above dining-hall and library, and a small chapel at E end. The front elevations vary slightly from 1848 lithograph.
Rear wing added in 1860 also by Clutton, William Lewis contractor. Stained glass by Bell of Bristol installed in chapel 1873-6. Additions 1906-12 by E.V. Collier, including examination hall. Very large Gothic chapel 1931-2 by E.V. Collier, at right angles to the original chapel, making the original into an ante-chapel. The college was renamed in 1931.

Exterior

College buildings, rubble stone with tooled sandstone quoins and Caen limestone dressings, steep slate roofs and altered stone chimneys. Two storeys and attic, main front to S, a single range with ridge octagonal lantern, flanked by coped gabled projections, and with principal's house at left end, and former chapel to right end, connecting with side wall of 1931 chapel aligned N-S.
Main range in severe C14 Gothic style. with ashlar windows and iron casements. Seven coped-gabled eaves dormers with narrow paired ogee lights and tilting latticed heads; big stone chimneys at right angles to wall-face each end. Fourteen first-floor narrow ogee cusped single-light windows linked by sill course. Ground floor has 3 pointed traceried 2-light windows to left, then 3 square-headed longer cross-mullioned windows with cusped top lights, hoodmoulds, and relieving arches. Doorway to right with similar square head and top-lights, but over pointed chamfered doorway with ledged door and iron hinges. Cusping of top lights is ogee. Plinth is stepped up under 3 left windows. Octagonal lantern was originally open, now closed in copper-sheet. Roof is hipped at N end down to lower ridge of projecting right gable.
Right gable has big first floor 4-light window with flat-head, hoodmould, cusped top lights and mid-height transom, over similar 5-light ground floor window, divided 1-3-1, and with string course stepped over as hoodmould. Ground floor buttress to each side wall.
Left gable has 3-light window to attic, 2 cusped single light windows on first floor and window of 3 cusped lights on ground floor with relieving arch.
The principal's house projects to left, with parapet on E side and right half of S front, gable to S front left. E side has single light and 2-light window on first floor and, on ground floor, shouldered centre doorway with ledged door and strap hinges flanked to each side by stone-mullioned window with ogee cusping and iron lattice glazing, in added lean-to conservatory. S end has single light over 2-light to right, and 3-light each floor under gable to left, with shaped heads to all but single light. C20 aluminium glazing. The W side has external chimneybreast to right, gables centre and left over 3-light windows, ground floor centre mullion-and-transom window with cusped heads to lights. C20 conservatory to right. Stone chimneys on ridge and at N end.
To right of right gable is the first chapel, low and modest with centre buttress and 2 square-headed transomed and mullioned windows with cusped top lights.
Chapel of 1931 at right angles to ante-chapel, Decorated Gothic style with ogee tracery, rock-faced local sandstone with Yorkshire Morley sandstone quoins and Doulting stone dressings. Nave and chancel with coped gables, cross finials, side-wall parapets, pointed windows with hoodmoulds, and buttresses between bays. S side has 2 nave bays with 2-light windows, plinth, moulded string courses at sill level and under parapet. Similar lower 2-bay chancel, with single lights, and E end pointed 3-light flanked by 2 single lights, the sill course stepped under 3-light and over a blank plaque. Chancel N of 2 bays, nave N of 6 bays. End buttresses are gabled. W end has fine window, 2-light closely flanked by single lights all under a big pointed hoodmould linked to parapet string course. Plaque below sill course. Single bay to nave S with moulded pointed S door.
Rear of old chapel has parallel range with no S windows but single W light.
NE wing behind appears to be of 2 builds, 1847 to left, 1860 to right. Left 2-bay section has ridge stack, gable to right with small attic casement pair, first and ground floor ashlar 3-light mullion-and-transom window with cusped heads. Similar 2-light to ground floor left and small 2-light under eaves left. Some iron lattice glazing.
Added 1860 range has same ridge line but higher eaves, 2-storey, with big corbelled centre first floor stack on mid-buttress. Six 2-light flat-headed plain windows above and 4 4-light windows below, the lights all iron with very small panes. Small end stacks.
At right angles is c1910 Archbishop Childs Hall with coped gables and open square lantern on roof, with ogee dome and finial. Rock-faced stone walls, ashlar big mullion and 2 transom windows, 2-light, 3-light, 2-light and big canted bay with parapet and 1-1-3-1-1 lights. Small-paned glazing. End wall has 2 single lights and a mid buttress and an armorial plaque between. Rear has 4 2-light windows as on front.
Rear of main range has 14 first floor plain square headed narrow windows and 7 hipped dormers with 2-light windows and iron glazing. Rear wings to both sides of rear court altered in C20.

Interior

Within entry, tiled hall with segmental pointed door to left into altered library, and plain stone cantilevered stairs with iron rail further back, in rear hall, and corridor beyond has 2 Gothic panelled doors to right, and lancets to left overlooking rear yard. Front range right has chapel ante-room with panelled dado and blocked big segmental pointed opening into old chapel. Old chapel of 2 bays has fine painted roof with deep arch-braced scissor trusses on corbels. Ceiling painting of c1900, pretty stencilled motif in each panel. Two kneeling angels and Crucifixion painted over entrance arch, and lettered text along wall heads. E end has blocked window over pointed arch with double doors into new chapel. N wall has one window to left and blocked segmental-pointed arch to right, blocked with door into parallel range to N, former organ chamber, with one similar window and boarded roof.
New chapel is large with nave and chancel. Six-bay nave complex hammerbeam roof of 7 main trusses and 6 intermediate trusses. Six E side windows, one with 1996 stained glass of Black Book of Carmarthen, by Gareth Morgan. C20 N end gallery with C19 Gothic organ by Nicholson & Co, originally in Wythall church. Moulded sill course. stepped over 3 openings on W, the entrance door in centre, door into organ chamber of former chapel, and the last to the nave corner door. Panelling below sill course. Moulded shafted chancel arch with low walls. Chancel has 3-bay similar roof. Cream and green marble floors, green marble chancel steps. Piscina on side wall. End windows have stained glass 4 single lights and one 3 light reset from old chapel, some by Bell of Bristol whose records for 1873-6 list a 3-light Ascension in E window and side lights of Faith, Hope and Charity and Jesus with Nicodemus. The 3-light Ascension is there, the 2 left windows Feed my Sheep and Follow me are post 1881, the 2 right windows, Christ teaching, and Christ stilling the tempest, possibly also. Small Gothic open-work pulpit on ashlar base, pews with roll-moulded bench ends. Brass eagle lectern of c1902. Panelled chancel stalls and panelled walls below sill course. Marble altar in grey and buff with inset yellow crosses. Reredos behind with frame for a hanging.
The principal's house has contemporary staircase with scrolled string and two stick balusters to each step. C19 fireplaces of wood and marble.

Reasons for Listing

Included as a mid C19 collegiate group in Puginian Gothic style, one of the best examples in Wales.

External Links

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