St Katherine's church is located on the east side of Sandhurst Road. It was built in 1803-8 as centrepiece of Charles Greville's new town, probably designed by the French architect Jean-Louis Barrallier, or his son Charles, and is one of the very few Georgian Gothic churches in south-west Wales with an interior of considerable quality. Restoration in 1866-7 by F Wehnert inserted stone tracery in all the windows.
Now thickly roughcast in grey cement, the building was possibly originally stuccoed and colourwashed. The exterior is thinly detailed but is dominated by a big west tower of four stages. The interior, aisled with clerestory, is vaulted in plaster. The nave, originally of four bays, with simple chancel arch and shallow apse, was extended east by two-bays in 1906-7 when a new chancel was built, by Wood & Gaskell of Milford. The tower has similar plaster vaulting to the ground-floor porch and first floor, which opens as a gallery to the nave.
Fittings include - in the nave - an ashlar font of l904 and fine nineteenth-century wrought iron baptistry screen; timber pulpit on ashlar base (l9l7); a l934 fresco, by Sister Marabel of Wantage, over the chancel arch; an elaborate, unpainted timber chancel screen of l9l9 by J Coates Carter with coved canopy and rood; and a carved reredos with statues by J Coates Carter (1924). In the porch is a porphyry Egyptian urn, intended by Greville as the font for the new church, and a piece of the mainmast of L'Orient, the French flagship at the Battle of the Nile.
Stained glass is mostly early to mid-twentieth century, but includes work by W.J.Petts (1987).
Sources:
Extracts from Cadw Listing description.
T.Lloyd, J.Orbach & R.Scourfield, Buildings of Wales: Pembrokeshire (2004), p.289-90.

RCAHMW, 9 June 2015