St Mary and All Saints' Church, Conwy

St Mary and All Saints’ Church stands in the walled town of Conwy, Wales, on ground once occupied by the Cistercian Aberconwy Abbey. The present building began with foundations laid in 1172 and the abbey church completed in 1186. Parts of the north wall and the east and west buttresses survive from that early period. In the fourteenth century the lower stage of the tower, the south transept and both porches were added. A room north of the tower was turned into a charnel house to hold bones removed from graves. The fifteenth century brought the tower to its full height and installed the rood screen and an early Tudor baptismal font. The font bears the badge of Sir Richard Pole, constable of Conwy Castle from 1488 to 1504, showing an eagle’s claw clutching a fish. In the sixteenth century aisle roofs were raised, and the south-end altar shelters the tomb of Robert Wynne, who paid for Plas Mawr on Conwy’s High Street. Gilbert Scott lifted the nave roof in 1872, and Lord Penrhyn donated the tower clock later that century. The church keeps medieval objects and two nave windows made by Morris & Co., linked to Edward Burne-Jones. A memorial chapel was added in 1921 and the vestry enlarged five years later. The former charnel house became the Parish Room in 1949. During summer the building hosts Conwy’s Classical Music Festival, offering weekly concerts by professional musicians.