- Nprn: 7269
- Summary: Ehe Rev. David Hussey visited Lampeter in December 1896 with the intention of establishing a Baptist church. The first Sunday school associated with Noddfa started on 1st January 1897 in 3 Victoria Terrace. The new church comprised 29 members, and 40 members in the Sunday school. The first baptism was carried out in August in the River Dulas.
Noddfa Baptist School Chapel was built in 1897 after a local landowner, Major Harford provided land on a 99 year lease. A local builder agreed a cost of £603 to construct the chapel which was designed by the Georgan Morgan practise, Carmarthen. October 1898 the foundation stone was laid, and the chapel was completed for a cost of just over £700. The minister from 1898 unti 1946 was Daniel Jones.
The chapel is built in the Classical style of the gable entry type,with wide pilasters to either end. The central, square-headed doorway is set within a segematlly headed arch and flanked by two small flat-headed windows. Above are three flat-headed gallery windows and, in the gable, a circular plaque inscribed with the name and dates.
RCAHMW, November 2009 - Description: School Chapel built 1897 in Classical style, gable entry type. Status (1998): in chapel use.
1898. Gable façade of painted render with centre entry to vestibule at rear of chapel; Ysgol Sul-cum-vestri and later-20th century kitchen in separate wings behind Sedd Fawr.
Front elevation to Bridge Street with plinth, wide giant pilasters at ends with cornice at base of pedimented gable with bargeboard and with end pilaster strips rising into the tympanum. The last contains blind oculus with the inscription: "Capel y Bedyddwyr/ Noddfa/ 1898". In the centre, a flat-headed doorway with chanelled pilaster strips set within a wide segmental arch with three-quarter round jambs and chamfered head. Two wooden-boarded doors (four-panel on rear face). To each side, a narrow window opening with projecting cill. Chanelled rustication at gallery level, inset with three flat-headed four-pane windows, with transom and mullion, and with continuous cill band.
Cement-rendered side elevations with plinth, each containing four semi-circular headed window openings with plain reveals, raked cills and smooth rendered archivolts; wood-framed windows. Slate roof.
NW. and SE. side elevations of Ysgol Sul-cum-Vestri each with a sixteen-pane sash window painted white, with horns and in plain reveals.
Rear elevation: plain rendered NE. gable to chapel; bargeboard. Single-storey Ysgol Sul and Vestri extension with slate hipped roof. Late-20th century single-storey flat-roofed kitchen wing beyond (built on land exchanged for road widening for adjacent Pioneer store).
Forecourt to chapel has concrete path to chapel doorway and is also paved with concrete slabs, continuing in front of SE. elevation too; small flower and shrub beds. Low stone boundary wall with rendered coping on SE. Rendered dwarf wall with coping along Bridge Street. Iron gates have uprights with tripartite finials rising alternately to above top and lock rails. Rendered boundary wall to rear, on NE.
Interior:
Vestibule: encaustic tile floor with red and brown tiles arranged in lozenges; border strips of cream tiles laid lozenge-wise on a brown background; beige margins. White-painted plaster walls. Ceiling comprises part of raked soffit to gallery; painted plaster with timber plate on corbels against the external wall. Six-panel door at NW. end. At SE. end, stairs to gallery with gold-brown painted and matchboarded balustrade with square newels with square moulded caps. Gallery stair in two flights, at right angles to each other; five steps to turn; six-panel door at base of upper flight of 10 or 11 steps, the upper flight with matchboarded enclosure. Inner wall of vestibule contains a window in centre, in memory of Mrs M.E.Evans, "Dothau", stylistically of 1920s or 1930s , of frosted and coloured glass, the centre light with a red star at the top and a red, gold and green chevron motif at the base. Small wall-hung and wood-framed hymn book cases below. To each side, a doorway, containing two doors of three panels each, leads from the vestibule into the chapel.
Chapel interior:
Matchboarded dado; pale-grey painted plaster walls . End gallery on SW. End wall, on NE., contains semi-circular plaster arch above pulpit, with deep-pink painted jambs and pale pink rear surface, to which is affixed a wooden cross. Lateral window openings with raked cills; leaded windows containing pale green/ grey glass with white and lilac margins, each with a pivot-hung light. Pink-painted plaster ceiling is divided into four panels by tie beams with "hammer" braces on corbels. Unraked ground floor but with lateral and middle bank of pews set on shallow wood platforms. Carpeted aisles. Bench seats with matchboarded backs with three-quarter mouldings at top; simple shaped Gothic ends with flat tops and three-quarter mouldings; black-painted seat numbering; bookrests and Communion glass holders. Red felt bench seat covers with fleur-de-lys and cross motifs. The two lateral banks of seats are numbered 1 to 9 on NW., and 34 to 42 on SE.. Nos 10 and 12 at the front are set at right angles to the Sedd Fawr and pulpit. The paired centre bank of seats, with continuous central matchboarded pew divider, are nubered 13 to 21 on NW. and 22 to 30 on SE.
A single-manual harmonium is set in the middle of the front two seats, the sides with handles and with turned baluster legs at the front angles. In the NE. corner, by the pulpit, is its replacement since 1957, the organ from the bombed Capel Gomer in Swansea, a gift from Mr J.T.Morgan, in memory of his mother, a faithful member of Noddfa.
The harmonium is by Metzler & Co.
Registration: l.h.: Forte, Sourdine, Basson, Clairion, Bourdon, Cor Anglai
Expression
r.h.: Flute, Clarinette, Fifre, Hautbois, Tremolo, Forte.
The organ from Capel Gomer is by W. and Co. ?Leeds?
Registration: l.h.: Swell Organ: Tremulant, Voix Celestes 8, Gemshorn 8, Oboe 8, Lieblich Gedacht 8, Violon Diapason 8
Couplers: Swell to great,
Great to pedal, Swell to Pedal
r.h.: Great Organ: Flute harmonic 4,
Hohl flute 8, Dulciana 8, Open Diapason 8
Pedal organ: Bourdon hoff.
Organ manuals and stops protected by sliding door of two glass panels with stopped and chamfered frame; vertical Gothic strip panel to right hand with two small sunk quatrefoils; twelve organ pipes over. Further case of organ pipes alongside on left hand, and arranged in three bays: three smaller pipes in centre above similar vertical Gothic panel; three tall pipes to right hand above oriel wood projection, and five tall slender pipes to left hand. Organ case with matchboarded side facing chapel.
Rectangular Sedd Fawr, its front stylistically similar to pulpit front, pulpit stairs and gallery front: timber plinth, matchboarding above a shallow wood balustrade of turned balusters, square newels with moulded caps as to gallery stairs. Rectangular pulpit projection with shallow balustrade as to Sedd Fawr, above two tiers of matchboarded panels; similar newels. Flanking pulpit stairs with shallow balustrade above matchboarding. High-backed wooden chair with arms in front of pulpit; Gothic-panel back with bosses on top rail and inscription, recording celebration of the 50th anniversary of the cause in Noddfa, Lampeter. Communion table with turned legs. Baptism tank beneath the Sedd Fawr (not seen).
End gallery with wood-faced gallery beam supported on two circular cast-iron columns with caps (founder not noted). Projecting gallery front with matchboarded panelled soffit, the front faced with matchboarded panels and balustraded parapet, as to pulpit and Sedd Fawr.
Gallery: the raked gallery has two banks of seats of four seats depth, with shaped ends as downstairs, and with centre aisle; wooden boarded floor; wood bench with matchboarded back along the rear wall.
The Ysgol Sul and Vestri comprise a narrow room behind the Sedd Fawr, lit at each of NW. and SE. ends by a small-paned sash window (see above) with splayed reveals and flat timber cills. Cream-painted plaster walls and white-painted plaster ceiling. There is a six-panel door leading into the chapel, to either side of the Sedd Fawr. The room can be subdivided in the middle with the use of folding and six-panel wood screen doors. There are five iron-framed benches with wood-plank seats and backs, the backs moveable so the benches can face either way, NW. to the Vestri table and upright piano, or SE. towards the Ysgol Sul. Kitchen at rear with late-20th century fittings.
OMJ
21/11/95
Visited 11/10/95 with the permission of the Chapel Secretary - Built: 1897 Source:Horsfall-Turner
- Built: 1898 Source:Evan James
- Church Formed: 1898 Source:Llawlyfr 1998
- Date Of Chapel: 1898 Source:
- Built: 1898 Source:BOW
- Built: 1899 Source:JO index
- Architect: 1898 George Morgan, Carmarthen
- Builder: 1899 John Jones, Lampeter
- £ 700: 1905 (RCCEORBWM)
- 252: 1905 (RCCEORBWM)
- 40: 1905 (RCCEORBWM)
- 260: 1903 (Horsfall-Turner)
- Chapel: 1998 (Llawlyfr)
- Chapel: 2011 (Denominational website)
- Welsh: 1998 (Llawlyfr)
- Materials
- Rendered
- Monument Type: CHAPEL
- Form: Building
- Storey: Two Storey
- Style: Classical
- Gallery: End Gallery
- Plan: Gable Entry
- Pulpit Position: Rear Wall
- Window Glazing: Diamond
- 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
Images from Coflein
Map
- Grid Reference: SN58084777
- Address: BRIDGE STREET, LAMPETERLAMPETER
2 thoughts on “Noddfa Welsh Baptist Church, Lampeter”
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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