Mount Pisgah Chapel

Cadw's description

Location

In the village of Parkmill, built into a hillside at the north side of the road. Stone retaining wall at front with central stairs, iron railings and gates.

History

Pisgah chapel was built in 1822. It was the last of six to be built at the expense of Lady Diana Barham, the benefactress of the evangelical movement, who came to live in Gower in 1813 and died in 1823. The design is more architecturally ambitious than the others, and has a classical Regency character with its stuccoed finish and separately roofed pavilions each side. Of the chapels which Lady Barham helped to found four, including this one, became Independent when Lady Barham's co-operation with the Calvinistic Methodists ceased in early 1823.
Pisgah has been much altered internally; the religious census of 1851 lists Mount Pisgah as seating 200 but the Nonconformist County Statistics for 1905 (published 1911) indicate only 160 seats. Nothing remains of the original seating or pulpit. The central porch and its internal vestibule are unlikely to be original. The left pavilion has been altered for a post office.

Exterior

The chapel is stuccoed apart from a stone plinth. Its front elevation is of three windows and has pavilion porches at each side separately roofed. The roofs are of low pitch, slated with boarded eaves. Pilasters define each bay of the front elevation; broader corner pilasters with recessed panels. The centre window is round-headed and the others segmental-headed; later glazing has been fitted with margin panes in coloured glass. Small central datestone with the wording 'Mount Pisgah Chapel 1822'. Central gabled porch with round-arch and panelled double doors.
Set back slightly at each side is a small single-storey block in the manner of a pavilion. Both are advanced to centre and given open-pediment treatment with broad round-arched recesses containing similarly arched doorways, both with fanlights and panelled doors.
The 2-window side elevations have wide casement windows with marginal glazing.

Interior

The interior is open by an arcade of two small arches to the left pavilion, and by a doorway to the right pavilion. In addition the central doorway leads to a timber screened vestibule, with tiled floor, and side doors leading to the interior. The original chapel floor has been lost and the present pews are all late C19. At the front there is a dais with a C19 gothic organ case, recently acquired, a table and a corner pulpit in the Anglican manner.

Reason for designation

An early C19 rural chapel the front of which is of unusually fine architectural character; one of a group associated with the work of Lady Diana Barham.