The church of St Julius and St Aaron is located on the west side of St Julian's Avenue at its junction with Oak Street. It was built in 1925-6 to designs of architect J.Coates Carter. However, it is incomplete and reduced in height and width from its original 1923 design. Earlier plans for a brick church in 1910 and for a grand basilica in 1917 came to nothing.

The church, its walls built of irregular Old Red Sandstone with dressings of red brick and pantilled roof slopes, consists of three-bay nave with double bell-gable and lean-to aisles and slightly lower three-bay chancel. Internally, the tone is one of blunt simplicity - concrete piers in the nave, wide four-centred arches of dull red brick, blocked arches for unbuilt chapels, and exposed rubble side walls. The roofs are barn-like with tie-beams and wind-braces. Fittings include a reredos taken from the church built at Capel y Ffin (1872-82), font in the form of a big square bowl on five circular shafts of black Caldey Island marble, and a carved stone relief from the demolished sixteenth-century mansion of St Julian's.

Source: extracts from J.Newman, Buildings of Wales: Gwent/Monmouthshire (2000), p.431.

RCAHMW, 13 February 2015

Site Record

Church of St Julius and St Aaron (Church in Wales), Newport