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ohn Coates Carter (1859-1927) was an enigmatic man, and apart from his undoubted masterpiece, the monastery on Caldey Island off the coast of Pembrokeshire (1907-15), his works are little known outside of South Wales, where he did most of his work in the counties of Monmouthshire, Glamorganshire and Pembrokeshire. His early designs were in the Gothic style of his erstwhile partner J. P. Seddon, but were soon influenced by the Arts and Crafts Movement and became increasingly idiosyncratic and difficult to categorise.
Monastery on Caldy Island.
He was born in Norfolk, the son of a well-to-do farmer and was articled to Norwich architect John Bond Pearce sometime in the 1870s. He went on to join the office of J. P. Seddon in London where he worked for a while alongside Charles Voysey. However, certainly by October 1883 he was working in Seddon’s Cardiff office in St Mary Street and by April 1884 was in partnership with him. It was already obvious that, newly arrived in South Wales, he was both self-confident and determined to be noticed for he wrote a scathing letter to the newspapers about what he perceived to be the poor standard of street architecture in Cardiff. The letter appeared first in the Western Mail of 18 February 1884, and then a few days later on 23 February in the Weekly Mail, - to quote a short section,
I do not think I should be far from the truth in saying that there is not a building in the streets of Cardiff, erected in recent years, that is not either badly proportioned with badly designed and ugly “ornament,” as I would suppose it would be called, or some false construction. If iron must be used in construction let it be seen, not veneered with thin slabs of stone. The late Mr. Street, in a lecture at the Academy, once said that, although we cannot all be great artists, no architect ever need do bad work, as by careful study anyone may train his eye to know good from bad forms, and it is culpable negligence, if not worse, to neglect to do so. Cardiff Architects however, think differently, if one may judge by their work. ["Street Architecture at Cardiff"]
In 1892 he became Secretary of the Cardiff, South Wales & Monmouth Architects Society and was its President in 1900, when he was also elected a Fellow of the RIBA.
Until 1904, when he set up on his own in Cardiff, he seems to have been largely in charge of the Cardiff Office of Messrs. Seddon and Carter. The best surviving church from his early period is St Paul’s church, Grangetown (1888-1902) where he was evidently influenced by Bodley’s work at St German’s church. Here he made use of artificial stone, comprising tiny pebbles mixed with cement, for some of the exterior dressings and grey smooth-finished concrete mouldings for the bases of the interior piers, both to good effect. Until 1908, when he moved to The Manor, in Prestbury near Cheltenham, he lived in Penarth, where he designed All Saints church (1889-91) (due to fire in 1926 and enemy action in 1941 no longer in its original form). In this area of Penarth, he also designed All Saints church hall (1906), the Paget Rooms (1906) and Woodland Hall (1896) together with a whole clutch of houses, including two for himself on Victoria Road (1892) and later Red House 60, Victoria Road (1901).
Left: Red House, Victoria Road, Penarth. Right: Plan for alterations to Michaelston-y-Fedw church, Seddon & Carter 1896, from the archives of W Clarke, Llandaff, by kind permission.
In 1916 he closed his office in Cardiff presumably with the intention of retiring, but he still took on commissions for projects that interested him, particularly the design of reredoses, though arguably the church of St Luke at Abercarn (1923-26, abandoned in c. 1980), where he experimented in the use of reinforced concrete, was his most spectacular achievement. His last church, St Peter, Dinas Powys, designed in the year of his death, was built in 1929-30.
As well as churches, houses and other buildings, together with reredoses, during the course of his life he also designed war memorials, all manner of furniture and interior fittings and ornaments, gardens, heraldic emblems and religious clothing, and between 1887 and 1911 he exhibited ten drawings at the Royal Academy. Although he was English, it was South Wales that stole his heart and the place where he will not be forgotten.
Bibliography
Carter, J.C. Architectural drawings, sketches and photographs for prospective churches in and near South Wales, together with houses, furniture, interior fittings and ornaments, ca. 1900-1927. National Library of Wales.
Carter, J. Coates. "Street Architecture at Cardiff." Western Mail. 18 February 1884, p. 4.
Hamilton, Alec. A Late-flowering of the Arts & Crafts in Pembrokeshire: The Heartfelt Hands-on Churchmanship of John Coates Carter. Journal of the Pembrokeshire Historical Society, Vol. 27 (2018), p.35-46. Available at A late-flowering of the Arts & Crafts in Pembrokeshire: the heartfelt hands-on churchmanship of John Coates Carter - Pembrokeshire Historical Society (a very useful source).
Lloyd, T., Orbach J. & Scourfield, R. The Buildings of Wales – Pembrokeshire. Yale University Press, 2004.
Newman, J. The Buildings of Wales – Glamorgan.Penguin, 1995.
Newman, J. The Buildings of Wales – Gwent/Monmouthshire. Penguin, 2000.
Seddon, J.P. and Carter J.C. WANTED, in Architects' Office, Educated Youth. South Wales Daily News, 12 October 1883. 2.
Seddon and Carter, Messrs. "Wanted, an articled pupil or boy." The Western Mail. 22 April 1884. 2.
Statham, Michael. Penarth Alabaster. Welsh Stone Forum, 2017.
Thomas, Phil. John Coates Carter Building a Sense of Place. Buildings Conservation Directory, (17th ed., London, 2010): Special Report on Historic Churches, p.34-39. Available at https://www.buildingconservation.com/articles/coates-carter/coates-carter.htm (a very useful source).
Created 10 July 2023