Catholic Church of Christ the King

On the W side of Gors Road, opposite Llys Glyndwr, behind contemporary railings and gates.

Catholic church of 1973-74 by the architectural practice the Bowen Dann Davies Partnership (BDDP), with Bill Davies the partner-in-charge and I G Davies as the project architect. The contractor was Anwyl Construction. Construction cost was £30,000.

Towyn is on low lying estuary land west of the Clwyd which was drained by Act of Parliament late in the eighteenth century. By 1949 it remained only a small, dispersed village, but over the next two decades grew rapidly as cheap land was brought up for holiday chalets and caravan parks as well as permanent homes. Christ the King was built to accommodate the needs of this growing but highly seasonal population.

The Bowen brothers of Colwyn Bay had built their practice on mock-Tudor and Arts and Crafts influenced private houses in the inter-war period and from 1950 onwards Stewart Powell Bowen had built up the practice with larger public housing schemes. He also embraced architectural Modernism with notable works such as the houses at Pen y Bryn Road, Colwyn Bay (see Listed Building 87759). The Bowen Dann Davies Partnership (BDDP) formed in 1970 with Stewart Bowen’s long-time protégé William Davies made a partner and joined by Frank Dann, formerly of PM Padmore’s practice in Llanfairfechan. The partners’ interests in North Wales vernacular styles and materials, always latent in the work, became more overt and critically celebrated in the 1970s. A 1982 in house design guide for the practice stated: “The quality of our landscape and our relatively severe climate deserve architectural solutions which will continue to provide valid and recognisable regional form … while accepting economical modern materials.”

Towyn was the second of three remarkable Catholic churches produced by Stewart Bowen and the Bowen Dann Davies Partnership (BDDP) between 1964 and 1976, an era of bold experiments in ecclesiastical architecture following the Second Vatican Council. The first was Our Lady of Lourdes at Benllech (1964-5, see Listed Building 87908) by Bowen, for which Bill Davies contributed all the architectural work. Christ the King in Towyn followed in 1973-4, and finally St Illtyd’s in nearby Rhuddlan was completed in 1976 (see Listed Building 87906). These three churches are very different in appearance, but all share a set of architectural ideas marrying BDDP’s critical regionalism with the post-war Liturgical Movement in Church design. Firstly, they use modular spaces, expressed externally, so that the church can easily adapt to the wide fluctuations in size of congregation produced by North Wales’ seasonal tourist industry. Secondly, they seek harmony with their surrounding landscape and townscape through low lying massing and choice of sympathetic materials. Finally, they are notable for the use of asymmetrical roofscapes harnessing natural light to emphasise the altar internally.

The church suffered minor damage and was repaired after Towyn’s sea defences were breached in 1990.