- Nprn: 7325
- Cadw Ref: 22/1/22(4)
- Cadw Record No: 16692
- Summary: Bancyfelin Methodist Chapel was built in 1863, established largely by Thomas Thomas, the owner of a mill on the same riverbank as the chapel. Previously meetings had been held at the corn mill in Llangrannog and at Lochtyn Farm. The chapel was modified in 1872 and again in 1888.
The chapel was built in the Simple Round-Headed style of the long-wall entry type with squared sandstone walls and a slate roof. The façade has two tall, centre windows with fan-headed glazing, between which is a small blank recess for a date plaque. There are two outer gallery windows of similar style, over outer doorways with plain, boarded doors and fanlights.
Internally there are two small lobbies from the entrances, which project under the five-sided gallery, with an entrance from the lobbies to the gallery stairs. The ground floor has raked box pews flanking the Sedd Fawr and the pulpit which is against the front wall. The Sedd Fawr is curved, with two staircase leading up to the pulpit. The pulpit has panels with Gothic heads, and has a white plaster arch with paneled pilasters behind it. The organ was removed when the chapel went out of use. The gallery is canted at the intersections, and has a front of timber panels to the bottom and open ironwork panels above. The whole is supported on iron columns with painted marbling, octagonal below and fluted above. The ceiling is matchboarded with deep ribs.
By 1995 the chapel had fallen into disuse and by 1998 converted into residential accommodation. The building is now Grade 2 listed as a well-proportioned example of a lateral fronted chapel.
In 1905 (Royal Commission on the Church of England and other Religious Bodies in Wales and Monmouthshire) there were 380 sittings in the chapel which was valued at £1000. - Description: Cause begun 1775; chapel built 1863 - cost £410. Alterations/additions 1872 & 1888. Building style is simple round-headed, long-wall entry type. Status (1998): other (dwelling).
This appears to have a duplicate record, 12127. NPRN 7325 is the prime record to use. Lateral entry chapel of early to mid C19 (date plaque removed); some internal alterations of late C19 or early C20. The chapel is no longer in ecclesiastical use and has been for sale on the open market; as at 19/1/96 apparently in the final stages of purchase. Stone walls. Front wall of dressed stone, partly in snecked courses; paired bracket eaves cornice. Slate roof. Semi-circular openings with tooled voussoirs in contrasting stone with dripstones; plain reveals; windows with slightly projecting cills. At each end, 2 diminishing slate steps to doorway with wooden-boarded door and 5-pane radiating fanlight. Gallery window in alignment above: 9-pane sash with 5-pane radiating head. 2 much taller windows towards the centre: 18-pane sashes with 5-pane radiating heads and with the cills at impost level of the main doorways. The windows in turn are linked to a small semi-circular opening in the centre for a plaque (plaque removed). Rendered end gable walls, each with a centre ground and 1st-floor 9-pane sash window with 5-pane radiating head; plain reveals; projecting cills. Rear elevation (only seen internally): stone; 3 cambered-headed 16-pane windows to both gallery and ground floor (in alignment). A culverted stream runs beneath the forecourt. Concrete paths from chapel entrances encircling grass island and joining before C20 iron gate; C19 stone gate piers (large blocks, rock-faced; curved pyramidal coping). Curved stone quadrant wall, then extending to garage on NW. (see below) &, on SE., returning along SW. plot boundary.
Chapel interior: small lobbies project from the 2 front corners under the 2 ends of the 3-sided gallery into the chapel interior. Slate slab lobby floors; internal entrance from lobbies to end gallery stairs, the last with 1 step at bottom before 4 steps on a turn then a straight flight of 11 steps plus lateral and further steps in raked gallery. Pairs of red baize doors with gilt panels and overlights lead from the lobbies into the chapel. Inner side lobby walls set above the high panelled backs to the box pews (2 each side) flanking Sedd Fawr and pulpit; inner lobby walls also each contain a C19 etched and coloured-glass window.
The chapel has a wooden-boarded floor. Panelled dado. Painted-paster walls: blue-grey to mid-window height; 2 narrow black painted bands; pale yellow above. Splayed window reveals, painted and grained timber cills; white-painted heads. White moulded ceiling cornice with white-painted shallow sloping sides above. 6-bay matchboarded ceiling, deep moulded wooden ribs; each bay further divided into 13 panels by plain ribs. Diagonally-matchboarded panels at ends and sides and in middle, two crosses.
5-sided gallery front, canted at intersections. Gallery beam with wooden soffit and coved white plaster front face beneath gallery front; gallery beam supported by iron columns with painted marbling, the shafts octagonal below and fluted above; ?lotus leaf caps. 2 -tier gallery front divided into bays at intersections by 2 tiers of pilasters; lower tier of wood between upper pierced chevron course and moulded cornice; iron openwork panels above, in an almost continuous sweep. Formerly with circular clock.
Raked seating to sides and rear on ground floor; painted and grained and panelled box pews: flat dark-stained moulding at top, ramped up with changes in pew height. No extant centre bank of pews in front of Sedd Fawr. Diagonal aisles rise to rear corner seats; also rear centre aisle. Each side, 1stly, narrow box pew and front seat beneath end staircases; 2ndly, obtuse angled block of paired seats extend to rear diagonal aisle, of 5 seats depth nearer Sedd Fawr and of 6 seats depth nearer diagonal aisle. 3rdly, a further obtuse-angled block of paired seats between diagonal and centre rear aisles: 5 seats depth flanking rear centre aisleand 6 seats depth flanking rear diagonal aisle.
Sedd Fawr and pulpit of early C20? (see CM Capel Tabernacl, New Quay, NPRN: 7194). Curved Sedd Fawr enclosure faced externally with 2 tiers: matchboarded panels in stopped and chamfered frame , below square tapering wood balusters. Bench seat with shaped ends and red felt seat cover. 1 step up each side. Similar balustrading to flanking pulpit staircases with 4 steps, 1 step on turn and 2 lateral steps to pulpit dais; reeded newels with square caps with small lozenge bosses and turned and ball finials. Varnished pine pulpit with narrow end projections; faced with vertical raised panels below pulpit stringcourse, the upper panels with late-Gothic heads, of 3 divisions in centre. Varnished wood bench seat against matchboarding on rear pulpit wall; white-painted plaster arch above with panelled pilasters, moulded archivolts on fancy acanthus-leaf consoles. Organ and Sedd Fawr fittings have been removed with the removal of ecclesiastical use.
Gallery seats with high sunk-panel backs and flat-topped and shaped ends. Front 2 rows of seats, behind former gallery clock, follow angles of gallery front: wide paired centre seat with ends canted round part of the gallery intersection; 2ndly, to each side, a shorter, obtuse-angled seat is canted round the gallery intersection and side; steps then lead up to a bench seat behind, which is canted round the 3 above-mentioned blocks of seating. Further steps also lead up from the gallery stairs to the rear corner benches. Finally, each side of the gallery, at the Sedd Fawr end, there is a long seat in the front row, with 1 seat to the rear on S. and 2 seats to the rear on N..
Detached vestry on NW. of chapel: 1860s? 2-storey vestry building: walls of shallow blocks of stone, the upper floor recessed in NE.& NW. elevations; contrasting stone for voussoirs and quoins in SE. and NE. elevations. Slate roof with crest tiles, brick NW. gable stack and SE. finial, the last above contemporary and similar SE. projecting porch, with pointed arched entrance in contrasting stone, the plaque now removed from plaque recess above. Porch interior with late-C19 or early-C20 floor of square red and black tiles laid lozenge-wise; pointed doorway to rear with wooden-boarded door. NW. gable end with brown-painted bargeboard above boarded stone roof ventilator slit. 4-bay NE. elevation, facing road. Quoined and cambered-headed ground-floor openings: 4 twelve-pane sash windows minus horns; translucent glass panes; wooden-boarded door in 2nd opening form SE.. Pointed first floor sash windows with glazing bars. Retaining wall in front of vestry,ramped up to SE. gate pier of brick and stone with pyramidal concrete coping; C19 iron gate. A stone garage (former coach house?), also with slate roof, projects at SE. end; red brick dressings to front (N.E.) garage door and NW. window.
To SE. of chapel, a detached 2-storey former chapel house: mid C19?; slate roof with 3 C19 stone stacks; 4-bay pebbledash front; sash windows. The NW. 3 bays have central wooden-boarded door and overlight with C19 lozenge tracery; flanking 12-pane sash windows with 3 in alignment above. To l.h., a sash window above a wooden-boarded door with glazed panel and a 9-pane sash window beside it.
OMJ
19/1/96 & 28/2/96
NMR Investigator photos: 960037/1A-5A,8A,10A-11A,14A-17A.
"Typical meeting house of the area. Dated 1863 but still in the Georgian tradition" .... (information from Welsh Office and MHLG provisional list for Teifiside R.D., surveyed 1962-1963; OMJ)
Visited 19/1/96 - Alterations: 1872 Source:Cadw
- Built: 1863 Source:Evan James
- Built: 1863 Source:Cadw
- Dated: 1863 Source:Welsh Office
- Cause: 1775 Source:Evan James
- Disused: 1995 Source:Cadw
- Date Of Chapel: 1863 Source:
- Vestry, Ch Ho, Coach Ho: 1888 Source:Evan James
- Converted To House: 1998 Source:BOW
- £ 1000: 1905 (RCCEORBWM)
- 380: 1905 (RCCEORBWM)
- Converted: 31/01/1997 SS now dwelling (Site visit)
- Disused: 1995 ()
- Materials
- Stone
- Monument Type: CHAPEL
- Form: Building
- Storey: Two Storey
- Style: Simple Round-Headed
- Gallery: On Four Sides
- 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
Key Characteristics of this Chapel
2 thoughts on “BANCYFELIN CHAPEL (WELSH CALVINISTIC METHODIST;BANCFELIN), LLANGRANNOG (BANCFELIN)”
Leave a Reply Cancel Reply
This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.
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