- Nprn: 7202
- Cadw Ref: DG
- Cadw Record No: 18890
- Summary: Tabernacl Baptist Chapel was built in 1812, rebuilt in 1833, repaired in 1907 and refronted in 1931 with some internal remodelling including a new pulpit and sedd fawr - to the design of architect J. Lewis Evans of Aberystwyth.
The present chapel, dated 1931, is built in the Clasical style of a long-wall design. The front elevation is stuccoed, with giant pilasters and entabletures decorated with Classical motifs. The doorways are at either end, each with an occulus above it, while in the centre are two round-headed pulpit windows. Above these is a date plaque inscibed "Tabernacl/ 1812". There is a burial ground to the front and rear of the chapel, containing many 19th century memorials.
Internally there are two stair lobbies from which lead the gallery staircases, and with doors into the main chapel interior. Between the rear chapel windows is another plaque inscribed "Tabernacl/ was/ built in the Year/ 1812/Rebuilded/ 1834. "This is none other but/ the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven." Jacob". There is a five sided Sedd Fawr, with similar panels to the gallery and two stairs up to the pulpit platform.
The gallery runs around three sides of the interior, supported by four cast iron columns and the entrance lobbles, and with a grained timber front. The seating is of open benches dating to the earlier 20th century. The organ, which sits in the gallery, is of late 19th century date and is by Nicholson & Co., Organ Builders, Worcester.
Tabernacl closed in 1990 and remained disused in 1998.
RCAHMW, November 2009 - Description: Cause begun ca.1804; chapel built 1812. Rebuilt 1833; refronted 1931 to the design of J. Lewis Evans of Aberystwyth. Building style is Classical, long-wall entry type. Status (1998): disused
History & development: 1st chapel built 1812 (evidence from internal C19 plaque and from The Religious Census of 1851); rebuilt 1834 (evidence from C19 internal plaque). Later repairs and alterations, e.g., of 1907 and 1931 (chapel re-opened on 30th & 31st October, 1931). These later works presumably included external remodelling of the façade, a new ceiling? And a new Sedd Fawr and pulpit. Closed 1990. Accommodation: in 1851, free 84, other 228 and standing 150. In 1905 (appendices to the Royal Commission on the Church of England and other Religious Bodies) there were 500 sittings.
Summary: lateral façade chapel with end doorways. Pulpit backing on to 2 front windows. Internal lobbies under 5-sided gallery. Early-C20? Sedd Fawr and pulpit.
Exterior: stuccoed front elevation, the result of a late-C19 or early-C20 re-working. High plinth faced with banded rustictaion under moulded cornice. Above the plinth, banded giant pilasters at ends, and plain pilasters, fluted beneath festoons and the caps missing,formerly Ionic?, framing the 2 pulpit windows; modillion eaves cornice; entablature and pediment over centre pulpit windows. End doorways with banded reveals, each doorway with 2 doors of 3 oblong panels each; door hood comprises cornice on brackets, the brackets moulded laterally with scrolls and descending to plinth cornice; narrow triangular pediment over. Over each doorway, a 6-pane oculus with moulded frame and triple keystone. 2 semi-circular headed windows backing on to pulpit: 24 panes (panes of tinted C20 glass) under radiating head; moulded eared architraves with triple keyblocks. Double pitched slate roof. An entablature above the pulpit window, with bead and reel and waterleaf-and-dart mouldings to the architrave; pediment ornamented with palin modillions and egg-and-dart moulding; bargeboard over raking cornices to pediment; cartouche in tympanum inscribed "Tabernacl/ 1812". 1-storey front elevation to vestry on S.: stuccoed; moulded 6-panel door to r.h. and, to l.h., narrow 12-pane sash windw, cambered-headed with horns.
SW. elevation: this comprises the SW. gable, cement rendered. Rendered wall and slate roof of vestry against ground floor; 4-pane sash window of frosted glass with horns at gallery level.
NE. elevation: cement rendered and lined as ashlar; rendered plinth diminishing to nothing on W.; slightly cambered-headed window opening at both ground and 1st floors with projecting slate cill, plain rendered reveals and 16-pane sash windows. Diagonally-boarded projecting eaves with brackets: 3 brackets to each pitch.
NW. or rear elevation: of cement render lined as if for ashlar. Projecting bracket eaves cornice. Lit by 2 window openings with slightly cambered heads both above and below; 16-pane sashes with tinted glass panes at ground floor: slightly projecting cills. Upper windows boarded internally. 2 slate-roofed lean-to extensions, N. one of brick with roofless brick structure to rear of it; S. one placed between the windows.
Burial ground and boundary walls: C19 memorials in areas of burial ground at front of and rear of chapel; enclosed by looped railings from the centre path rising from the front gates, this path diverging to each chapel doorway and continuing round NE. side of chapel to rear, still bounded by looped railings and with gate at NW. end. Burial ground enclosed by a stone boundary wall at rear and on N. (the latter marking the boundary between Tabernacl and Bethel chapels) and by a rendered wall on S.. Bounded in front by walls and railings and by gates (the similar gates to the adjacent "Bethel" chapel stamped "Ellis Bros. Aberystwyth"). Walls under railings faced with Flemish bond brickwork: chequer pattern of dark headers and yellow-brick stretchers under slate slab coping; rendered wall pier at each end and with moulded and coved caps under large rounded tops. 3 bays of railings to S. of gates and 5 to N. (13 or 14 uprights per bay); circular, iron-twist uprights with fleur-de-lys finials, the uprights descending alternately to slate coping and alternately to the bottom rails; larger standards. Octagonal iron gate piers with ball finials and overthrow to pair of gates. Gates set above the bottom of 3 slate steps and of a similar design to the railings, with uprights rising alternately to above the lock and top rails.
Interior: chapel-cum-gallery stair lobbies: each lobby with floor of red tiles laid herringbone fashion in black tile border; cream-painted plaster walls, white-painted raked plaster ceiling. Painted & grained rear face of external entrance doors; doorways to chapel interior inset with 2 similar painted and grained doors, each of 3 sunk panels to lobby with moulded face to chapel. Internal side wall to pulpit with square window, now with C20 frosted glass and frame (formerly small panes). Brown lino strip with Greek key border on timber stairs to gallery: 1 straight step, 3 steps on turn and an upper flight of 14 steps, the lowest of the upper flight below 4 moulded-panel gallery door.
Chapel interior: brown lino strip to aisles, partly retained; wood-boarded floor beneath the former seats. Cream-painted walls, in N. and S. walls at ground floor above varnished and matchboarded dado with brown top rail. The 2 rear ground-floor windows with splayed reveals and beaded angles; brown-painted flat cills; partly-tinted glass in NE. and rear ground-floor windows, also tinted and frosted C20 glass in front windows. Raked and white-painted plaster ceiling beneath gallery. Plaque in late-C19 frame between rear chapel windows and inscribed: "Tabernacl/ was/ built in the Year/ 1812/Rebuilded/ 1834. "This is none other but/ the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven." Jacob". Main ceiling: flat and divided into plaster panels by girders with moulded plaster casing: 2 panels at each end, 6 panels in centre, arranged in 2 strips of 3, the very centre panels with diagonal ribs and circular centre vents.
Gallery: round NE., SW., and NW., sides: 5-sided gallery front; similarly-shaped gallery beam faced with entablature with moulded cornice; gallery beam supported by 4 cast-iron columns and by the entrance lobbies (see above). Circular iron columns with the upper shafts painted cream, above black-painted shaft ring; painted and grained lower shafts; no founder's name apparent. Gallery front of mid C19?; faced with 3 painted and grained and moulded horizontal panels to each bay, the bays punctuated by pilasters. 2 bays to NE. and SW. sides and 1 to each canted intersection and 1 on NW.. On NW. side, in front of organ, there is a further tier of panels and low balustrading and newels, similar to those on Sedd Fawr and presumably of early C20?
Ground-floor seating: this has been removed but the plan can be traced in the floor and the profile of the seating in the end walls (see photos 970155/22 & /24-/25). Formerly single blocks of 6 seats depth at each side with the external ends of seats raked forward; rear corner seat, and with a smaller seat just in front of lobby doors (information from evidence in site photos and Commander Mortimer's plan).
Sedd Fawr and pulpit: of early C20? 2 steps up in its canted sides to the 5-sided Sedd Fawr enclosure, positioned between the entrance lobbies, and faced externally with sunk panels of varnished pine beneath a low balustrade of square turned balusters, the balusters in groups of 3. Along the front of the enclosure: 8 panels: squarish panels interspersed with 2 wider panels; 4 small squarish panels below the balustrading in the canted returns; panelled newels with panelled caps and rounded tops; small square panels instead of balustrading along sides with lobbies.
Larger similar panelling behind pulpit and pulpit stairs. Pulpit platform with a straight flight of steps each side: 2 groups of 3 balusters, taller but similar to those on Sedd Fawr; the newel also similar. 5-sided pulpit platform, widest in front; faced with tier of vertical panels below middle cornice, with 4 at front including 2 cupboard doors. Above the cornice and to each side of pulpit: smaller squarer panels with low crowning balustrades that enclose corner seats; central pulpit faced with 2 panels, flanked by fluted pilasters with plain caps and bases; lectern over. High moulded and oblong panel behind pulpit, with rounded head at centre top.
Gallery seating: early-C20 open bench seats of panelled varnished pine; shaped and flat-topped bench ends; three-quarter moulding above panelled seat backs. On both NE. and SW. sides, from E. or pulpit end: 1. narrow single block of seats of 4 seats depth, back seat on S. removed; 2. Wider block but of 2 seats depth in front of gallery stairs, and fanning out in width along the diagonal aisle behind the gallery intersection; 3. single block of 3 seats depth behind canted side of gallery, fanning out in width towards the rear of the block. Aisle to rear; 4. To rear of 3 and its rear aisle, a seat each side of short aisle to corner seat.
Organ: in NW. side of gallery. Late-C19 or early-C20? Single-manual organ by Nicholson & Co., Organ Builders, Worcester (restored by Geo. Osmond & Co., Taunton). Siver-painted pipes painted with with green shaft rings and fleur-de-lys ornament; varnished pipe casing.
Registration: (l.h.): 8 voix celestes; 8 echo gamba; 4 principal; 8 lieblich gedacht; 8 open diapason
(r.h.): manual to pedal; 16 Bourdon.
Conclusion: in a local context comparable perhaps to Capel-y-Garn, Bow Street, also a galleried, lateral-entry chapel. The latter was remodelled in stucco externally ca. 1900, and partially refitted internally (Sedd Fawr and pulpit), and also partially re-seated (on ground floor).
OJ 21/3/97-28/5/97. Visited 21/3/97.
References: Rhamant y Tabernacl, ed. By W.J.Gruffydd (Cambrian News, 1953); NLW Ms. 16172B.
So like the kind of reworking that John Hartland did in Capel y Garn at nearby Bow Street that one is tempted to say it's his work again. (Anthony Jones) - Gallery Added: Pre 1850 Source:Cadw
- Alterations: 1931 Source:RCAHMW
- Date On Facade: 1812 Source:Cadw (plaque)
- Built: 1812 Source:1851 Census
- Said To Have Been Built: 1815 Source:Cadw
- Built: 1834 Source:Anthony Jones
- Built: 1812 Source:Anthony Jones
- Built: 1931 Source:Anthony Jones
- Closed: 1990 Source:Jenkins, O M
- Disused: By 1997 Source:Cadw
- Date Of Chapel: 1931 Source:
- Refronted: 1931 Source:Cadw
- Rebuilt: 1834 Source:Jenkins, O M (plaque
- Rebuilt: 1834 Source:Cadw
- Rebuilt: 1833 Source:RCAHMW
- Architect: 1931 J. Lewis Evans, Aberystwyth
- Architect: 1931 J. Lewis Evans, Aberystwyth
- Architect: 1833 David Roberts,
- £ 1670: 1905 (RCCEORBWM)
- 60: 1905 (RCCEORBWM)
- 84: 1851 ()
- 228: 1851 ()
- 500: 1905 (RCCEORBWM)
- 150: 1851 Standing ()
- Disused: 09/19/1997 (Cadw)
- Disused: 2010 (RCAHMW)
- English: ()
- Materials
- Rendered
- Monument Type: CHAPEL
- Form: Building
- Storey: Two Storey
- Style: Classical
- Gallery: On three sides
- Plan: Long-wall entry
- Pulpit Position: Front wall
- Window Glazing: Small Pane
- Windows: 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
2 thoughts on “Tabernacl Welsh Baptist Chapel, Tal-y-bont”
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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