St John's cathedral, Brecon was formerly the medieval church of the Priory of Brecon and together with its adjoining buildings it comprises one of the most complete groups of ecclesiastical buildings in Wales. Whilst some probable 12th century fabric has been identified, the existing fabric is later, comprising an early thirteenth century chancel, crossing tower and trancepts, the aised nave being later thirteenth and fourteenth century. The church has been subject to many later repairs, alterations & additions. It has a triple sedilia and a piscina, worn late medieval relief and elaborate arches to the side chapels. The Harvard Chapel, to the north, has a fine doorway with ball-flower work, foliage-cresting to hood and flanking pinnacles. There is a fourteenth century tomb of Walter and Christine Aubrey.

Wallpainting include a painted ashlar fragment, a mid-fifteenth century painted chancel roof with gilt stars and inscription, a ‘golden rood’ and former screen with carved and painted trade emblems, a seventeenth century eagle and mantle, and and a former eighteenth century nave roof with painted compartments which was later whitewashed.

Sources include:
RCAHMW 1994 Brecon Cathedral Church - an architectural study; CADW listed buildings database.
Richard Suggett, Painted Temples: Wallpaintings and Rood-screens in Welsh Churches, 1200–1800, (RCAHMW 2021), pp. 19, 30, 60, 70, 73, 90, 114, 121–2, 134.

RCAHMW 2021