- Nprn: 7132
- Cadw Ref: 22/A/226(2)
- Cadw Record No: 10156
- Summary: Peniel Welsh Independent Chapel was built in 1833 for a community founded in 1810. The chapel was built during the ministry of of the Rev. T. Phillips, principal of Neuaddllwyd Academy, which was the mother church to the local cause having been founded at Neuaddllwyd in 1760. The builders were D.Rees and T. Evans, and this first chapel had its entrance in Peniel Lane.
It was later enlarged in 1857, and reordered to face south-west onto Water Street. A photo dating to 1895 shows a gable façade with two semi-circular headed sash windows to the gallery, flanking a slate date plaque, and with a centre gabled porch with a wide doorway Peniel was again partly rebuilt in 1897 with the current façade.
The chapel is a mixture of the Classical and Romanesque styles, the facacade built of bull nose rubble with bathstone dressings. The central bay is slightly set forward, and contains a plaque inscribed "Peniel/ Addoldy/ yr Annibynwyr/ adeiladwyd 1833/ Helaethwyd 1857/ Helaethwyd ac adnewyddwyd 1897". The rear elevation still has the blocked doorway of 1833, over which is a plaque inscribed "Peniel Independent Chapel/ Built 1833/ Pastor Rev. T. Phillips D.D./ Erected by D.Rees T.Evans". The chapel is entered via a semi-circular arched entrance, and the windows are similarly semi-circular Venetian style.
Inside the chapel is a raked gallery on three sides, mounted upon cast-iron columns with foliated capitals, with a cast iron filigree front marked by "Walter Macfarlane & Co., Glasgow. There is an integral circular clock with wood-panelled surround bearing the legend: "J.N.Evans Aberayron". The gallery decoration is mirrored in the curved sedd fawr front and pulpit. There is an organ by Peter Gonacher & Co. (The Old Firm), Huddersfield, either side of which is a stained glass window by John Hall and Sons (Bristol and London). One is in memory of The Reverend William Evans, Minister at Peniel 1835-96, while the other, of Christ and the little children, is in memory of John and Mary Jones, faithful members from 1865-1916.The plastered ceiling is ribbed and has ornate ventilation roundels.
In the 1851 Religious Census it is recorded as having a capacity of free 60; other 318; standing 70. In the 1905 census (Royal Commission on the Church of England and other Religious Bodies in Wales and Monmouthshire) there were 1000 sittings in both the chapel and the schoolroom. At this time it was valued at £2,965.
To the south-east of the chapel is the former chapel house, and to the rear, the Sunday school and vestry, built in the late 19th century.
Source: Cadw Listed Building Record
RCAHMW Inventory Documents
K Steele, RCAHMW, 16 March 2009 - Description: Cause begun 1810/11 & chapel built 1833/4; enlarged 1857 & 1897. Building style is Classical, gable entry type. Status (1998): in chapel use.
History & development: the first Chapel was built in 1833 (evidence from plaque and from Religious Census of 1851) during the Ministry of the Rev. T. Phillips, principal of Neuaddllwyd Academy, the mother church to the local cause having been founded at Neuaddllwyd in 1760 (Tegwen Parry photo album 3). For this 1st chapel, D.Rees and T. Evans were the erecters (builders?; evidence from plaque); this had its entrance in Peniel Lane. Extended and re-ordered to face SW. in 1857, the outline of the post-1857 chapel shown, e.g., on an 1890 OS map. An 1895 photo (Tegwen Parry photo album) shows a gable façade to SW., with two semi-circular headed sash windows to the gallery, flanking a slate date plaque (now in the NE. gable?) and with a centre gabled porch with a wide doorway. Extended on SW. and partly rebuilt in 1897. Accommodation: in 1851, free 60; other 318; standing 70. In 1905 (appendces to the Royal Commission on the Church of England and other Religious Bodies) there were 1000 sittings in both the chapel and the schoolroom.
Summary: stone-built chapel; presently with gable façade, and apparently with such in 1833? Centre entry. Gallery on 3 sides. Open bench seats. Pipe organ. Front pavement with patterned pebble setts.
Exterior: front elevation: present façade of 1897 set well back from Water Street at rear of railed forecourt. Snecked stone façade with commemoration stones of 1897 at base. Paler ashlar (Bath stone?) as quoins, voussoirs, bands, kneelers and coping. Gable projection in centre, giving an impression of the end bays as lean-to side aisles. Each end bay with kneeler beneath raked moulded coping, and containing a tall semi-circular headed window opening with cill band, and with quoins and voussoirs. 2-light end windows of 8 panes depth including semi-circular headed top panes; glazed circular lights and glazed spandrels in the heads. 2 similar but shorter windows (of 4 panes depth, including top panes) with cill band in central gabled projection, set above central semi-circular doorway. The last of ashlar, with moulded and chamfered jamb, plain reveals and with dripstone continuing to each side as stringcourse; plain reveals; 2 segmentally-headed doors, each of 6 moulded panels, beneath semi-circular fanlight containing circular light and spandrels of leaded glass. Slate plaque over the 2 centre windows inscribed: "Peniel/ Addoldy/ yr Annibynwyr/ adeiladwyd 1833/ Helaethwyd 1857/ Helaethwyd ac adnewyddwyd 1897". Above it, louvred ventilator in semi-circular arched opening. Centre gable with kneelers and coping and wrought-iron finial. Slate roof with base of 2 vent towers on ridge.
Forecourt: SW. forecourt with grassed area each side behind Water Street railings; path in between, plus space in front of Chapel entrance, and plus path between Chapel and Ysgol Sul, all laid with blue-grey paviours of Ruabon type, partly "diamond block" and partly octagons with small lozenges. Grassed areas enclosed by C19 railings in the form of circular top and middle rails, with iron twist standards with square caps with rose paterae and small finials.
Forecourt gates and railings and front pavement: forecourt bounded from Water Street by late-C19 dwarf walls, railings and gates (shown in 1895 photo?). 2 slate steps to iron gates with irontwist uprights with fleur-de-lys finials rising alternately to top and lock rails; Gothic tracery below top rail. Octagonal iron gate piers on rectangular base with moulded caps and ball finials, flanked by railings on curved quadrant dwarf walls of snecked stone with ashlar coping; railings have irontwist uprights with fleur-de-lys finials.
The pavement in front of the gates in Water Street is faced with pebble setts, with lozenges and circles picked out in paler pebbles.
Side elevations: rendered side elevations to the chapel of 4 bays each with openings with plain reveals and projecting cills, camber-headed below and semi-circular headed above in the gallery. 2-light windows, of 6 panes to the ground floor and of 8 panes to the gallery, including top quadrant panes. Lean-to and late-C19 Minister's vestry against NE. end of SE. lateral elevation; rendered walls, slate roof, gable over lateral window; entrance in SW. elevation via wooden-boarded door with 6-pane window beside it.
Rear elevation: rendered gable to NE. on to Peniel Lane, now the Sedd Fawr end. The site of the 1833 centre entry is retained, blocked, semi-circular headed with pilasters and moulded head. 2 semi-circular headed windows with plain archivolts to the gallery, and containing stained glass. Circular slate plaque over old entrance and at cill level inscribed: "Peniel Independent Chapel/ Built 1833/ Pastor Rev. T. Phillips D.D./ Erected by D.Rees T.Evans". Louvred and semi-circular headed vent opening below gable apex. Plain bargeboard. Enclosed from Peniel Lanes by stone boundary wall.
To SE. of the old chapel entrance is a house formerly owned by the chapel, a C19 structure with pebbledash walls, slate roof, and front elevation of 2 window bays and centre doorway; rendered architraves and keystones to ground-floor openings which comprise a 4-pane sash window with horns each side of a half-glazed and 4-panel door; a 12-pane sash window to each side on 1st floor. A single-storey extension on NW. with window opening and doorway.
Vestry and Sunday School: late-C19 Vestry and Sunday School, built behind a Water Street house and separated by a narrow path from the SE. lateral elevation of the Chapel. Rendered walls and slate roof. Semi-circular headed window openings with plain reveals and projecting cills and containing wood-framed windows (8 panes plus 2 quadrant panes above a transom); 2 windows to the E. gable, 3 to the N. side and 5 to the S.. 2 slate steps up to rendered and gabled NW. porch facing on to chapel forecourt: bargeboard and finial above semi-circular doorway with pilasters, moulded head and keystone. Later rendereed and slate-roofed kitchen extension on NW., with 12-pane sash windows, 2 in N. wall and 1 in S., the last to E. of a wooden-boarded door with overlight; yellow brick stack.
Interior: Vestibule interior: late-C19 patterned encaustic tile floor, of beige, brown, red and white tiles, arranged in crosses superimposed with honeysuckle and fleurons; Greek key border. Matchboarded dado, painted plaster walls and ceiling, the last raked as part of gallery soffit with timber plate on corbels against external walls. Rear face of each external entrance door of 6 stopped and chamfered panels; fanlight inset with leaded glazing and pale blue, pink and gold-coloured glass. Flat internal vestibule wall with 2 pairs of 2-panel doors with porcelain and brass handles, flanking stained glass in timber framework of round-arched and 3-bay arcading. Timber gallery stairs at each end of vestibule, with 6 steps with balustrade of turned balusters, & rising via a turn in the stairs to the varnished gallery door of 6 vertical panels in 2 tiers, with taller upper tier. Flight of 12 steps above the door; stick baluster balustrade against outer walls; matcboarded enclosure.
Chapel interior: wood-boarded floor with red-patterned carpeted aisles. Matchboarded dado; pale grey painted walls and white-painted window frames. Window openings with chamfered jambs, splayed reveals and flat, white-painted timber cills, the heads of the south-westernmost ground-floor windows masked by the upper flights of the gallery stairs. 4-panel door to Minister's vestry in SE. wall. Raked and white-painted plaster soffits to gallery with timber beams on stone corbels along external and internal walls; late-C20 ceiling lights in gallery soffits. Ceiling: bright pale-green rectangular plaster ceiling, subdivided by moulded white ribs into outer and inner green margin panels, with square angle panels; a large inner rectangle with inset, end, triangular panels, intermediate NE. and SW. ventilator grilles; large centre decorative rose with guilloche border enclosing green-painted leaves with gilded flowers.
Ground-floor seating: unraked ground-floor seating. On low platforms; bench seats (numbered to 73) with matchboarded backs and plain shaped Gothic ends, with metal number plaques, umbrella holders and bookrests. Double block of seats in centre with discontinuous seat divider; numbered 24-37 on NW. and 38-51 on SE.. Single block of seats each side with their external ends raked forward; numbered 1-15 on NW. and 59-73 on SE.. At NW. end, and facing at right angles on to sides of pulpit are: (a) 7 lateral seats in 2 groups on NW. (16-18 & 19-22) and (b) 6 lateral seats in 2 groups of 3 on SE. (53-55 & 56-58). Boarded dais continues NW. from centre block of seats in front of Sedd Fawr: upright piano (J. & J. Hopkinson, London) to r.h., with green upholstered stool in front of it.
Gallery: 3-sided gallery, curved at intersections. Moulded and wood-cased gallery beam supported by 9 cast-iron columns, the columns with white-painted upper shafts above painted and grained lower shafts, and foliated green, white and gold caps. Gallery front of openwork cast-iron panels, stamped "Walter Macfarlane & Co., Glasgow", and arranged in a continuous sweep, with moulded cornice; integral circular clock with wood-panelled surround and bearing legend: "J.N.Evans/ Aberayron".
Gallery seating: 44 numbered bench seats, stylistically similar to those below. Each side, from Sedd Fawr end: 1. a single block of seats of 2 seats depth, lateral wall bench to rear; 2. paired block of seats of 2 seats depth; 3.paired block of seats of 2 seats depth, partly curved round the gallery intersection; 4. at the SW. end of the gallery and facing on to the pulpit, a paired block of seats of 5 seats depth, with the ends curved round part of the gallery intersection.
Sedd Fawr, pulpit and organ: 2 steps up each side to Sedd Fawr enclosure which has a curved front, faced with stopped and chamfered pine panels beneath panels of openwork cast iron, the latter in same ganeral style as the gallery front, but with crosses in quatrefoils between chevron borders. Curved Sedd Fawr bench with sloping matchboarded back; red felt seat cover with fleur-de-lys pattern. Sedd Fawr enclosure contains highly-polished communion table with Gothic details and lectern in memory of The Reverend J.Gwilym Evans (Minister from 1891-1949); also to his memory, a chair to either side (with shaped, raised and fielded panel on seat back) and behind the communion table, a high-backed and pedimented chair with single panel back and ball finials.
2 flights of 6 steps each side to rectangular pulpit platform, the steps with balustrade of turned wood balusters; heavy turned newel posts, the caps chamfered with roundels and ball finials. Pulpit platform faced at front and to each side of central pulpit projection with wood panelling below mid cornice; 2 vertical opnwork cast iron panels above (E. panel stamped "No.133:-10-111"; by MacFarlanes also?). Mid cornice continues in front of the central pulpit projection; the latter faced faced below the mid cornice with 2 shallow oblong panels above 2 diagonally-boarded panels; above the mid cornice, the pulpit projection is faced with 2 panels of blind arcading with ?ebony colonnettes. Behind the pulpit, a 2-seater settle, upholstered in purple.
Organ: accessible from each end of pulpit platform by 2 steps, and also via a separate flight of 7 steps, partly on a curve, behind th pulpit dais. Little platform with 2 Gothic chairs with red felt covers on SE. of organ. Two-manual pipe organ by Peter Gonacher & Co. (The Old Firm), Huddersfield.
Registration: Swell organ: Oboe 8, Saute Flute 4, Saucional 8, Violon diapason 8, Tremulant, Piccolo 2, Voix Celeste 8, Lieblich Gedacht 8
Couplers: Swell to pedals, Great to pedals, Swell super octave, Swell to great
Great organ (r.h. side): Principal 4, Hohl Flute 8, Clarinet 8, Dulciana 8, Large open diapason 8
Pedal organ: Flute bass 8, Bourdon 16
Organ case with curved matchboarded sides and panelled front, the last with coved wood soffit beneath front organ pipes, these comprising 5 beige-painted pipes each side of 13 grey-painted pipes, gilded and tinted red. 13 pipes above curved matchboarded sides.
A semi-circular headed stained -glass window by John Hall and Sons (Bristol and London) to each side of the organ; unveiled 1927. SE. window in memory of The Reverend William Evans, Minister at Peniel 1835-96; NW. window, of Christ and the little children, in memory of John and Mary Jones, faithful members from 1865-1916.
Vestry and Sunday School interior: porch with black and red tile floor, laid lozenge-wise; white-painted plaster walls; segmental headed door with painted and grained panels. Vestry with wood-boarded floor. Varnished matchboarded dado with varnished band at window cill level. Painted plaster walls; window openings with splayed reveals, flat heads and flat timber cills. Ceiling with white-painted sloping sides of plaster, and ceiled flat at collar level where faced with 6 panels of wooden matchboarding. At east end, 2 steps up to dais with brown linoleum floor and low matchboarded front, the latter beneath wood balustrading of turned wood balusters with heavy newels with ball finials. C19 harmonium at S. end of dais; Priestley upright piano in front of it. Main body of Ysgol Sul with centre aisle with brown linoleum strip flanked on S. by 7 iron-framed bench seats with wood-plank seats and backs, the last convertible to desks; stamped "Scholastic trading co. Ltd., London". In addition, 21 non-convertible iron-framed benches with wood plank seats and backs (as in Capel Tabernacl, Aberaeron), bearing maker's name plaque: "Scholastic trading/ school furniture/ Bristol & Cardiff". A C19 clock on N. wall with circular face and wood case: "Edwards/ London".
Kitchen extension with red quarry tile floor, painted plaster walls and ceiling; arched fireplace against E. wall with painted mantleshelf on brackets.
Conclusion: an interesting example of re-use and adaptation of an 1833 chapel on the same site, unlike Penybont Baptist Chapel, Pontweli, for, instance, which was moved to a closely adjoining site when the chapel was rebuilt in early C20.
OMJ. 3/11, 13/11, and 22/12/95 & 2/-5/97. Visited 2/10, 3/10 and 17/12/95OMJ. 3/11, 13/11, and 22/12/95 & 2/-5/97. in the company of the Chapel Secretary with the permision of the minister
Sources: Tegwen Parry photo album no. 3 (NLW, Dept. of Paintings and Maps).
Rough stone walls, projecting central bay, nice neat circular plaque in slate. Excellent dwarf courtyard beautifully cobbled.(Anthony Jones) - Remodelled: 1857 Source:Cadw
- Built: 1833 Source:1851 Census
- Built: 1833 Source:Evan James
- "built" On To Peniel Lane: 1833 Source:Cadw
- Built: 1835 Source:Welsh Office
- Built: 1833 Source:Horsfall-Turner
- Rebuilt: 1857 Source:Jones, Anthony
- Cause Established: 1811 Source:Cadw
- Cause: 1760 Source:Evan James
- Rebuilt: 1897 Source:Evan James
- Rebuilt: c.1875 Source:Welsh Office
- Extended: 1857 Source:Evan James
- Rebuilt: 1897 Source:Cadw
- Enlarged: 1897 Source:Horsfall-Turner
- Enlarged: 1857 Source:Horsfall-Turner
- Turned To Water Street: 1857 Source:Cadw
- Organ: 1927 Source:BOW
- Stained Glass: 1927 Source:BOW
- Date Of Chapel: 1897 Source:RCAHMW
- Builder: 1833 D. Rees,
- Builder: 1833 T. Evans,
- £ 2950: 1905 (RCCEORBWM)
- 800: 1903 (Horsfall-Turner)
- 70: 1851 Standing ()
- 1000: 1905 (RCCEORBWM)
- 60: 1851 ()
- 318: 1851 ()
- Chapel: 1998 (Blwyddiadur)
- Chapel: 2010 (RCAHMW)
- Welsh: ()
- Materials
- Stone
- Monument Type: CHAPEL
- Form: Building
- Storey: Two Storey and Basement
- Style: Classical
- Gallery: On three sides
- Plan: Gable Entry
- Pulpit Position: Rear wall
- Window Glazing: Florentine Tracery
- Windows: Tall Round-Headed
Key Details of this Chapel
Key Dates of this Chapel
Key People in this Chapel History
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: SN45886281
- Address: WATER STREET, ABERAERON; PENIEL LANE, ABERAERONABERAERON
2 thoughts on “PENIEL WELSH INDEPENDENT CHAPEL, WATER ST./PENIEL LANE, ABERAERON (WELSH CONGREGATIONAL)”
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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