- Nprn: 11554
- Cadw Ref: (WO)2/107
- Summary: Ainon Baptist Chapel was built in 1815, rebuilt in 1845 and renovated in 1863. The present chapel, dated 1863, is built in the Vernacular and Lombardic/Italian style, with a gable entry plan and large pane round-headed windows.
RCAHMW, January 2011 - Description: Possibly built 1815, rebuilt 1845 and renovated 1863. Built in the Vernacular and Lombardic/Italian style, gable entry type. Present status [1998]: Chapel
This has a duplicate record, 6988. This, 11554, is the prime record to use.
The Baptist cause was founded locally in 1789. The present building of ca. 1845 replaces an earlier chapel of ca. 1815 on another site at Ffolt, next to the burial ground there. Late 19th-century (post-1870) or early 20th-century porch and vestry.
Pulpit with flanking entrance doors, and sited against gable façade, against which has been built the later gabled and lean-to porch and S. vestry. Stone walls with pebbledash cladding. Slate roof.
Front elevation with rendered quoins and pedimental gable with band as cornice, and rendered raked coping and wrought-iron finial. Rectangular plaque on gable states : "Ainon/ Addoldy y/ Bedyddwyr/ Glanwydden/ Corffolwyd yn 17?89". Gabled porch in centre, of stone with yellow brick dressings; central segmentally-headed doorway with stone jambs and voussoirs; triplet of semi-circular headed window lights above, each of three panes depth, the centre light wider, and each light with separate raked cill and yellow brick dressings; gable finial. Narrow, single-storey lean-to flanking wings with stone walls and lean-to slate roofs, each with a two-light window in the front wall, of three panes depth, the top panes with semi-circular heads.
Attached vestry on S., also of stone; slate roof; SE. yellow brick stack; SE. gable wall with a window opening with stone lintel, and containing a two-light window of three panes depth, the top panes with semi-circular heads. Gable finial.
Forecourt enclosed by stone boundary wall with stone blocks as coping, returning to vetsry on S. and to lean-to vestibule on N.. Square stone gate piers flanking iron gate in front of path to chapel; gate with rectangular uprights, rising alternately above middle and top rails.
NE. lateral elevation with two semi-circular headed windows each of twelve panes beneath a three-pane radiating head. Rear NW. gable with finial and two flat-headed nine-pane windows. SW. lateral elevation has two flat-arched twelve-pane windows in plain rendered architrave. Lean-to against NW. end of elevation (used for storage, e.g., for collapsible stage formerly put over Sedd Fawr for concerts etc.). A wooden-boarded door in SE. elevation with small wooden-boarded opening over. Windows with some opening panes.
Interior:
Vestibule: red and black tile floor. Matchboarded dado. Pale-blue painted plaster walls. Flat plaster ceiling at ends; higher centre portion with pale-blue matchboarded walls, and white-painted and flat matchboarded ceiling with sloping sides. Inner wall of vestibule comprises original external wall of chapel and retains two tall semi-circular headed windows, now concealed externally, that light the pulpit, each with beaded jambs and plain external reveals, and containing a twelve-pane window under a three-pane radiating head. Flanking semi-circular headed doorways each with a plain fanlight and a late-19th or early-20th century doors of six stopped and chamfered vertical panels, arranged in two tiers of three, with shorter tier below. Wood bench seat with shaped ends between doorway and N. window; bench seat/ settle with panelled back and square ends along inner vestibule wall.
Chapel interior: beige-painted plaster walls (dressed stone plinth visible at rear) with a moulded dado band, the last at window cill level along the rear wall, but raked down the side walls. White-painted moulded ceiling cornice. Matchboarded ceiling, painted grey and subdivided by white ribs; central decorative rose formerly for gasolier, enclosed by large rectangular panel with four small circular panels at the corners, one retaining a ventilator with metal grille.
Seating raked down to Sedd Fawr and pulpit. Painted and grained wooden bench seats with panelled backs and simple shaped ends, numbered in paint, with dark-stained plain moulded handrail above top rail. Fifty numbered seats in all. Paired centre bank of seats of ten seats depth; single lateral bank of seats each side of eleven seats depth. Down at front of chapel interior, two single banks of seats of two seats depth face at right angles on to sides of Sedd Fawr and pulpit.
Three-sided and rectangular painted and grained Sedd Fawr faced with single tier of vertical panelling, with dark stained handrail at top as to seats in congregation. Bench seat with red felt cover; lateral single panel doors. In line with the sides of the Sedd Fawr are the straight outer balustrades to the three-step pulpit stairs; turned balusters and newels, the last with square caps, and with ball finial at foot of stairs and tall turned finial at top. Pulpit with shallow wood-panelled base above a wood bench seat with shaped ends and red felt seat cover. At front of pulpit dais, there is an open balustrade to each side of the centre pulpit projection, with turned end newel and ball finial (as to foot of stairs) and with two twisted and scrolled and white-painted iron standards under a moulded rail; curtain behind. Central pulpit and lectern projection with two-tier panel front enclosed by carved brackets and machiolated band under a moulded cornice; sloping top. Windsor chair on pulpit dais which has matchboarded rear wall with two wood panels above, between the two pulpit windows. Three triangular-headed white stone memorials. One between the pulpit windows to Thomas Rhys Davies (1790-1859), "one of the heroes of the pulpit", who died and was buried in Swansea in the same grave as Christmas Evans (see NPRN 9000). Another over the left hand (N.) door to The Reverend James Sphinter James (1837-1914), Minister at Ainon Chapel from 1870-1888. The third over right hand door to The Reverend John Williams, Efael-y-Waen, Glanwydden (1806-56), an ancestor of the present Chapel Secretary. First World War memorial plaque also between pulpit windows. Metal lamp brackets, formerly for gas, on pulpit window jambs.
!9th-century harmonium extant, but replaced by electronic organ.
Vestry interior: wooden boarded floor.Matchboarded dado. Blue-painted plaster walls. White-painted plaster ceiling with sloping sides. Small SW. corner fireplace surround of 1930s?. Wood bench seats. In NW. corner cupboard a tea-service in white and blue china bearing legend: "Ainon 1928".
An early-20th century photograph in the vestry shows the chapel interior with oil lamps. The chapel was flooded internally ca. 1993. In 1995, a membership of about 7; no minister.
OMJ
25/9 & 27/12/95
Visited 25/9/95 with the kind permission and in the company of the Chapel Secretary, Mrs D.E.Davies, 2 Waen Road, Glanwydden, Cyffordd Llandudno LL31 9JW. - "built" At Ffolt: c.1815 Source:Jenkins, O.M.
- Founded: 1799 Source:Welsh Office
- Founded: 1785 Source:RCCEORBWM
- Cause: 1789 Source:Jenkins, O.M.
- Founded: 1789 Source:Morris, G (plaque)
- Church Formed: 1790 Source:Llawlyfr 1998
- Rebuilt: 1845 Source:Jenkins, O.M.
- Rebuilt: 1850A Source:Welsh Office
- Renovated: 1863 Source:
- Date Of Chapel: 1863 Source:
- 263: 1905 Sittings (RCCEORBWM)
- Chapel: 17/09/1998 (Site visit - Glynn Morris)
- Chapel: 2011 Use spasmodic (Denominational website)
- Welsh: ()
- Welsh: 1998 (Llawlyfr)
- Welsh: 17/09/1998 (Site visit - Glynn Morris)
- Materials
- Rendered
- Monument Type: CHAPEL
- Form: Building
- Storey: Single Storey
- Style: Mixed
- Gallery: X
- Plan: Gable Entry
- Pulpit Position: Rear Wall
- Window Glazing: Large Pane
- Windows: Round-Headed
Key Details of this Chapel
Key Dates of this Chapel
Capacities during this Chapels History
Changes of Status its History
The Languages of the Chapel during its History
Key Characteristics of this Chapel
Images from Coflein
Map
- Grid Reference: SH81728033
- Address: WAUN ROAD, GLANWYDDEN
2 thoughts on “AINON WELSH BAPTIST CHURCH (GLANWYDDEN), WAUN ROAD, GLANWYDDEN (GLANWYDDEN; WELSH BAPTIST)”
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Hello
My great great grandparents were married in Kinnerton Chapel in Old Radnor on 21st May1850. I have been searching for information on the Chapel, so was pleased to find this website. I have now located it on Google Street View – looks like someone is ‘doing it up’ to live in: https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@52.2612635,-3.1095337,3a,90y,232.95h,84.26t/data=!3m9!1e1!3m7!1s-8DWPORkq2RFVNXBLde_-g!2e0!7i13312!8i6656!9m2!1b1!2i53?hl=en-GB
The marriage record of my ancestors Abraham Bounds and Elizabeth Williams is attached. I hope it is of interest.
All the best
Saira
Dear Sara
Thank you for the information. I am glad to hear that it was some help to you.
Good luck on your continued search
Christine