- Nprn: 6633
- Cadw Record No: Bethel Independent Chapel was built in 1860 in the Simple Gothic style of the gable entry type. A memorial tablet to William Williams of Parc-y-Rhos, on the rear internal wall, gives part of the history of this chapel.
RCAHMW, August 2009 - Summary: Bethel Independent Chapel was built in 1860 in the Simple Gothic style of the gable entry type. A memorial tablet to William Williams of Parc-y-Rhos, on the rear internal wall, gives part of the history of this chapel.
RCAHMW, August 2009 - Description: Chapel built 1860; memorial tablet to William Williams of Parc-y-rhos, on the rear internal wall of the chapel, gives part of the history of the Independent cause in Parc-y-rhos & of the background of present 1860 chapel. Building style is simple gothic, gable entry type. Status (1999): in chapel use. Date of present building 1860.
Built below the Lampeter-Llandovery road; views to NW. over the Teifi valley. Chapel house attached on NE.; former stable to S. Stone boundary wall to chapel enclosure.
History: 1860. Memorial stone to William Williams of Parc-y-Rhos, on the rear internal wall of the chapel, gives part of the history of the Independent cause in Parc-y-Rhos and of the background to the construction of the present 1860 chapel.
Summary: SE. gable façade wth end entries; pulpit against centre of front gable.
Exterior: wall of rock-faced stone in diminishing courses; large blocks of stone between the two doorways and either end of the façade; semi-circular doorways with stone vouuoirs; wooden-boarded doors with bead moulding to frames; semi-circular fanlight with radiating tracery of mid-19th century type. Two tall window openings with projecting cills are set between the doorways; these each contain a 19th-century window with intersecting tracery in the head, and each of six-panes depth below. In the gable tympanum there is a painted circular plaque with stone voussoirs and bearing in gilded letters the inscription: "Bethel/ Capel/ yr Annibynwyr/ Adeiladwyd/ Yn y flwyddyn/ 1860". Slate roof.
Two semi-circular headed windows to each lateral wall. The SW. return elevation is slate-hung above white-painted rubble walling. The window openings are the old ones with slate projecting cills, but the two windows have been renewed. They resemble the 19th-century windows on the NE. side; they are of five-panes depth, with radiating tracery in the head, but are stained brown and do not include an opening light as their predecessors did. The NE. lateral elevation is of stone rubble, the apparently 19th-century windows of five-panes depth behind a five-pane radiating head.
The rear gable elevation is rendered, with a plain bargeboard and with a ventilator slit in the apex. The lean-to vestry is built against the rear gable of the chapel. This has a slate roof and grey-painted NW. wall; Two flat-headed window openings with concrete cills each contain a 20th-century frosted-glass window of three panes each.
SW. elevation of vestri with a late-20th century brown-stained window in an old opening to left hand; to right hand, a lean-to and red-painted corrugated iron porch, with two steps up to a wooden-boarded door with overlight.
Chapel house: contemporary with the chapel? One storey and attic with two-storey late-20th century rear wing at right angles. Front wing with stone rubble front wall and slate roof, with NE. brick gable stack. Stone voussoirs to ground-floor openings: two window openings and a doorway, the latter of late-20th century date and the former comprising eight-pane brown-painted sash windows with horns. In alignment with the ground-floor windows, two similar attic windows, each with a gable. NE. gable end wall of pebbledash, as is NE. elevation of 20th-century rear wing, with a two-light 20th-century window both above and below.
Former stable on SW., a single-storey outbuilding with slate roof. In SE. lateral wall, a left-hand window, with a wooden-boarded door on right hand. Lower single-storey outbuilding wing on NE., with NE. dormer.
The Chapel has a tarmacadamed forecourt, extending NW. as far as the chapel house, and on SW. as far as the old stable. The forecourt is enclosed on three sides by a stone boundary wall with rounded rendered coping; the SE. boundary wall, extending S. from the entrance gates, has blocks of rubble stone on the coping. Stone gate piers at NE. entry. The northern boundary wall extends as far NW. as the garden gates on NW. of the chapel house.
Interior:
Chapel vestibules: strap-hinges to the two external doors. Two small vestibules project into the chapel, each made up of two painted and grained wooden walls with moulded cornice and flat boarded tops; these are built against the front outer angles of the chapel. The inner vestibule doors are each of four moulded panels; the wood-panelled vestibule side walls each contain an eight-pane rectangular window with glazing bars of mid-19th century type.
Chapel interior: raked floor; pink-carpeted aisles; stepped and wooden-boarded floors to lateral and centre pews. Box pews throughout. Painted-plaster walls, pink-painted to a high "dado" level, above window cill height; terracotta-painted "chair-rail" band; cream-painted walls above and cream-painted window reveals. Plain window openings to the two front or SE. windows; flat, brown-painted cills. Terracotta-painted jamb mouldings to the lateral windows, the front lateral windows with raked cills and the rear windows in the same walls with flat cills. Lateral walls also with ceiling cornice, painted terracotta and white.
White-painted matchboarded ceiling divided by white-painted and moulded ribs into four flat panels and, on both the NE. and SW. sloping sides, into two shallow panels. Pendant at centre intersection ; smaller pendants at angles of four moulded rectangular ceiling panels, placed at outer ends of ceiling.
Gold-brown painted and grained box pews, with sunk panels to backs and to lateral doors; dark-brown painted and flat-moulded handrail, the last ramped up towards the back of the chapel with each change in pew height. NE. and SW. lateral banks of pews have three-panel seat backs and are of seven pews in depth (possibly formerly eight on NE. side). L-shaped and panelled bench seat in front on NE. and SW., with shaped bench end. Paired bank of box pews of seven pews depth in centre, the pews here separated laterally in discontinuous fashion; that is, in each pair of seats, one pew with a two-panel seat back and the other with four, but alternating from seat pair to seat pair. Bench seat in front with shaped ends. Bench seat with panelled back along rear wall, into which is also set, at the entrance to the later vestry, a door of four stopped and chamfered panels and with moulded architrave frame.
Rectangular Sedd Fawr on SE., flanked by entrance vestibules and comprising three benches with panelled backs and shaped ends, the back of the wide front bench facing the chapel of nine panels width. The lateral Sedd Fawr benches each have a high-backed box pew to rear, that seems to be built under and to support the side windows in the vestibules.
Probably the original pulpit and pulpit stairs. One flight of stairs only, on north, and comprising a four-step wood newel stair with stick baluster, plain handrail and columnar newel with shaft rings. Pulpit with canted sides at base, of five moulded panels below the pulpit stringcourse; semi-circular wood balustrade of turned balusters above. Sunk-panel back to pulpit, beneath semi-cicular headed plaster arch, with fluted pink pilasters with plain caps. Cupboard with two moulded-panel doors built against SE. face of pulpit; gold-grained wood chest below.
Near top of rear wall, memorial tablet of 1860s, the work of R.Jones, Pencarreg and in memory of William Williams, Parc-yr-Rhos: "Er cof am William Williams Parc yr Rhos/ yr hwn a fu farw mawrth 19 1861 yn 82 oedd, ac a gladdwyd yn mynwent y plwyf hwn.
"Efe oedd sylfaenydd cyntaf yr Eglwys yma (yr/ hwn a ddechreydd yn Glanrhyd (ty annedd) yn y Flwyddyn
1841, or dan weinidogaeth, y Parch. W./ Davies phD. Ffrwd ful; a phan benderfynwyd gan yr Eglwys a'I Gweinidog y Parch Thomas Jones/ Temple Bar yn 1859 I gael Capel yna wedi cael ammodrwyon ar y daru cir yma, am swllr y/ flwyddyn or ardreth, gan Colonel Wood) rhoddodd fwy na hanner y draul a aeth at adeiladu y ty hwn, a'r cai yssulleiedig ag ef".
Vestri (and kitchen): part vinyl and part-carpeted floor; matchboarded dado on NW. and NE.; painted plaster walls; white-painted plaster ceiling, with sloping sides on NW. Furniture includes four wood
benches set against the walls.
OMJ
17/11 and 22/11/95
Visited 17/11/95 with the permission of the Chapel Secretary - Built: 1860 Source:Rawlins
- Built: 1860 Source:Walters, S. (plaque)
- Date Of Chapel: 1860 Source:RCAHMW
- £ 650: 1905 (RCCEORBWM)
- 154: 1905 Sittings (RCCEORBWM)
- 46: 1905 Accomodation (RCCEORBWM)
- Chapel: 04/03/1999 (Site visit - S. Walters)
- Chapel: 6/12/2010 (Denominational website)
- Welsh: 04/03/1999 (Site visit - S. Walters)
- Materials
- Stone
- Monument Type: CHAPEL
- Form: Building
- Style: Simple Round-Headed
- Plan: Gable Entry
- Window Glazing: Fan Headed
- Windows: Round-Headed
Key Details of this Chapel
Key Dates of this Chapel
Costs during this Chapels History
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: SN58524607
- Address: PARC-Y-RHOS, CWMANN
2 thoughts on “Bethel Welsh Independent Chapel, Parc-y-rhos, Cwmann”
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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