- Nprn: 7286
- Cadw Ref: 22/D/5&6(5)
- Cadw Record No: 10563
- Summary: The cause here was started in 1832, by a Mr Lloyd, a tax official who also preached. Tabernacl Methodist Chapel was built in 1832 and altered later in the ninetenth century. The chapel is built in the Sub-Classical style of the long-wall entry type with two end doorways. Internally the pulpit is set between the two entrances, facing a raised sedd fawr. The seating is of bench pews. To the side of the pulpit is a single-manual organ by Georg. Osmond & Co./Taunton.
There is an adjoining chapel house below the first floor vestry. By 2000 Tabernacl had fallen into disuse but is Grade 2 listed.
In 1905 (Royal Commission on the Church of England and other Religious Bodies in Wales and Monmouthshire) there were 200 sittings in the chapel which was valued at £500.
RCAHMW, November 2009 - Description: Chapel built 1832; altered later C19th. Built in the Sub-Classical style, long-wall entry type. Status (2000): disused.
The Calvinistic Methodist cause was established here and the chapel built in 1832. Sittings as given in the Religious Census of 1851: free, 204; standing, approximately 324.
Summary: rectangular,lateral-entry chapel with 2 end doorways, the pulpit set between them. Little-altered, 1-storey, presently ungalleried interior. Adjoining chapel house below 1st-floor vestry.
Exterior: SE.-facing façade of pale-grey painted stucco with raised and cream-painted stucco dressings and white-painted woodwork; end entrances. Raised plinth, end pilaster strips and decorative eaves band, like old chapel, Llwynrhydowen. At each end, 2 slate steps to a semi-circular headed doorway with pilasters, moulded archivolts and wooden-boarded doors with 5-pane radiating fanlights over. Above each doorway, a semi-circular headed window opening with grey-painted reveals and raised cream-painted architrave; 9-pane sash window under a 5-pane radiating head. 2 similar but taller windows nearer the centre of the façade, lighting the pulpit and with the impost height of each window roughly at cill level of the outer windows; 12-pane sash windows under 5-pane radiating heads. Bands link the impost levels and cills of the inner windows, & frame a tall rectangular & cream-painted panel with rebated angles. Rectangular slate plaque in stuccoed frame over and above the pulpit windows, inscribed "Tabernacle 1832". Grey-painted corrugated iron to SE. gable. Rear elevation of stone rubble; openings with stone voussoirs, including blocked upper openings.
The lower chapel house adjoins on NE.. Also of pale-grey painted stucco; cream-painted plinth and window cills. Flat-headed left-hand doorway up 2 slate steps; grey-painted reveals; wooden boarded door. 12-pane ground-floor sash window to r.h., now boarded over; 8-pane sash window above it at 1st floor. Side elevation of stone rubble; 6-pane window (narrowed) to ground floor with 12-pane sash window above it; wooden-boarded door to r.h. (room behind not seen); external stone stair to vetsry with slate treads, the stair rising to a wooden-boarded door with shallow overlight.
The chapel is set behind a concrete-slab forecourt, raised in turn above Bridge Street and enclosed by a stone retaining wall with concrete coping; fence with white-painted rails and posts in place of railings. Iron gates, early ?C20.
Chapel interior: NE. and SW. matchboarded entrance lobbies project into the chapel; of ca. 1900?, with wood embattled cornices. Lobby interiors with tile floor as in chapel. Painted-plaster walls with stopped and chamfered arch to external doorways. White-painted boarded ceiling. SW. lobby with end wall cupboard of two moulded panels above a boarded base; shaped cresting. Doorways to chapel interior each with one 4-moulded panel door and one narrower 2-moulded panel door; painted and grained. C19 overlights with an etched glass centre panel enclosed by margin panes, amber to sides and red and blue at top and bottom.
Chapel with floor of red, gold/beige and black quarry-tiles arranged lozenge-wise in bands, both in main aisles and under front seats. Ochre-painted plaster walls above panelled bench seat linings along side walls and matchboarding along rear and part of front walls. In rear wall of chapel, 4 flat-headed and chamfered window openings with splayed reveals; the 2 inner ground-floor openings each with a flat timber cill and a 12-pane sash window, the r.h. window with horns. Circular wall clock in between them in centre, with legend: "Dd. Harris/ Bush". Blind opening at either end above. White-painted ceiling with darkish-beige painted and moulded ceiling cornice; cruciform vent at NE. and SW. ends. Large decorative centre rose of plaster; cream/beige ground, green, gold, pale-pink and red guilloche border; large circular centre panel with green-painted acanthus leaves.
Painted and grained open bench seats with vertical sunk-panel backs, but with moulded panels facing on to aisles; flat top mouldings; shaped ends; channelled bookrests and communion glass holders. Paired block of seats of 3 seats depth in centre, with canted sides and thus the 2nd and 3rd seats progressively narrower than the front seat: moulded panels facing outwards at front and rear; the single front bench with 12-panel back, the paired 2nd seats with 5-panel seat backs, and the 3rd paired seats with seat backs of 4 and a bit panels each; panelled seat ends, with the stiles rising above the tops of the panels. The centre seats are bounded by an aisle at sides and rear; also a passage in front of them. Raked seats at sides and back of chapel, subdivided by lesser aisles, the seating on the SW. side mirroring that on the NE.. No bookrests; communion glass holders. On each side, from Sedd Fawr end, a single block of seats, now of 2 seats depth, and separated by an aisle - with a narrow bench seat at the back of it - from a paired bank of seats of 3 seats depth, obtuse-angled; diagonal aisles rise to the 2 rear corner seats. Between the N. and S. diagonal aisles, 2 paired banks of seats, also obtuse-angled, and extending round the back of the chapel as far as the rear centre aisle, below the wall clock and facing the pulpit; here there is another narrow bench seat. The ends of the front seats are slightly more elaborately shaped than the simple curved ends of the 2nd and 3rd seats.
Carpeted Sedd Fawr dais up 1 step & entered from the canted front corners; faced externally with painted and grained panelling; organ on S. bounded by high panelling, now connected to panelled Sedd Fawr enclosure; Sedd Fawr bench seat with red felt cover. Sedd Fawr has possibly been altered on S. where there are 2 tiers of moulded panelling (once a pew here?).The single-tier, 8-panel front, facing the chapel, has 3 sunk panels in the centre, flanked by moulded panels.
4-step pulpit stair on NE. only, with open string, stick balustrade, moulded handrail and columnar newel; moulded panel pulpit door. Painted and grained pulpit projection with canted sides and faced with 2 tiers of moulded panelling, the shorter square panels below the pulpit stringcourse, with pink-red panels above; corner seat in pulpit. Behind the pulpit, a moulded plaster arch framed by panelled pilasters and archivolt on carved projecting plaster brackets; this contains a segmental white tablet on a black ground in memory of the Reverend Thomas James, Minister here for 48 years. Polished C19 communion table with turned legs and red chenille cloth over it. Eisteddfod chair in front of pulpit stairs: "Ferndale", "1925". Between pulpit and SW. lobby, organ with gold-painted pipes. Single-manual organ by Georg. Osmond & Co./Taunton.
Registration: Melodic bourdon 16, Stopped diapason 8, Salicional 8, Gemshorn 4, Open diapason 8.
Between Sedd Fawr and NE. entrance lobby, single-manual harmonium by J.C.Mepham, London and Sheerness, also the label, of the supplier?, Duck Son and Pinker Ltd and Son. ?walnut case; turned front legs.
Registration: (l.h.): O Forte, S Sourdine, 2 Bourdon, 1 Flute
Expression
(r.h.): 1 Flute, 2 Bourdon, C-Voix celestes, T Tremolo, O Forte.
Black triangular-headed First World War Memorial on NE. end wall. On SW. wall, memorial with shaped head to The Reverend E.Evans, Minister from 1927-46.
Chapel house interior: not at present inhabited. Slate flags behind door; black quarry tiles elsewhere. 1 wide front room, 2 smaller rear rooms, 1 very narrow in line with front door & both with recess in rear wall; wooden-boarded partitions; narrow exposed ceiling joists. Front room with plain C19 pilastered fireplace surround and mantelshelf on brackets; range, the oven door stamped "CB Dale" & "DRJones, Ironmonger, Llandyssil"; sash window with splayed reveals; possibly original wooden-boarded doors to rear rooms, at least one with strap hinges. 1st-floor vestry: not, in 1996, in use. NE. window with flanking C19 fireplaces, E. one of earlier-C19 style with dentil cornice and panelled pilasters.
Conclusion: part of the 1830s Calvinistic Methodist Cardiganshire building ?programme: e.g., galleried and 3rd Capel Tabernacl, Aberystwyth of 1831 (NPRN: 7157), Capelau Tabernacl in both Aberaeron & Cardigan (both 1833; NPRNs: 7134 & 7143). Amongst Cardiganshire lateral-façade and smaller, (presently) ungalleried chapels of the 1830s with 2 pulpit windows, Capel Tabernacle, Llandysul is similar in conception to the externally plainer Calvinistic Methodist Capel Bethel, Aberarth (rebuilt 1848, NPRN: 7294), and to the internally plainer, Calvinistic Methodist Capel Ffos-y-Ffyn of 1831 (NPRN7249). Capel Tabernacl, Lampeter, of 1806 (NPRN: 14932), appears to have had only 1 pulpit window.
OMJ, 7/1/95 & 15/11-20/12/96. Visited by OJ 14/11/95 & by DJR & OJ 14/11/96 by kind permission of the Chapel Secretary
Sources: W.J.Davies, Hanes plwyf Llandyssul (Landyssul: J.D.Lewis, 1896; reprinted by Gwasg Gomer, December, 1992).
NMR photos: 9500405/21-29 & 9500406/13-23
Converted to a Library. (Anthony Jones) - Altered: 1880A Source:Cadw
- Built: 1832 Source:1851 Census
- Built: 1832 Source:Plaque
- Built: 1832 Source:Horsfall-Turner
- Built: 1833 Source:Evan James
- Built: 1832 Source:Cadw
- Built: 1832 Source:Anthony Jones
- Cause: 1832 Source:Evan James
- Date Of Chapel: 1880A Source:
- £ 500: 1905 (RCCEORBWM)
- 324: 1851 Standing ()
- 200: 1905 (RCCEORBWM)
- 204: 1851 ()
- Disused: 2000 Sold (Site visit - O M Jenkins)
- Welsh: 1995 (Blwyddiadur)
- Materials
- Rendered
- Monument Type: CHAPEL
- Form: Building
- Storey: Single Storey
- Style: Sub Classical
- Plan: Long-wall entry
- Pulpit Position: Front Wall
- 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: SN41554041
- Address: BRIDGE STREET, LLANDYSULLLANDYSUL
2 thoughts on “Tabernacl Chapel (welsh Calvinistic Methodist), Bridge Street, Llandysul”
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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