Eglwys Bresbyteraidd Cymru

Cadw's description

Location

On the N side of the road from Amlwch Port to Pengorffwysfa, set back in a railed forecourt.

History

Dated 1900, apparently replacing an earlier building of 1850; little subsequent alteration apart from the addition of a school room, circa 1950.

Exterior

Roughcast render with smooth rendered dressings; hipped slate roof surmounted by 2 vents. Beaux Arts style with strongly articulated design. Entrance front facing the street of 5 bays (1-3-1) with pedimented outer bays: fluted capitals to pilasters carrying pediment with dentilled enrichment. Half-round windows with strongly moulded keystones beneath the cornice. Advanced porches in each of these bays, also pedimented in a more stripped-down style. Each has paired panelled doors. Inner bays are arcaded by engaged Tuscan shafts with impost bands of windows wrapped over them to form a continuous horizontal emphasis. Windows in each bay have strongly moulded round-arched heads with keystones and are 12-pane sashes throughout. Moulded cornice above is clasped between the advanced outer bays. Return elevations each a 5-window range with narrower bay towards entrance front: this bay and the end bay are given emphasis by fluted capitals to pilasters, which elsewhere are plain, though strongly articulated by pilasters, with continuous impost band of round-arched windows wrapping them. Moulded cornice. Rear elevation partially obscured by later additions, but central pedimented projection with coupled pilasters is visible.

Interior

Doorways in entrance porches lead to polygonal lobbies formed in the outer angles of the chapel. The floor is gently raked down in angled aisles between banks of pews canted around the set fawr and pulpit in the centre of the rear wall. Coved ceiling with the window embrasures cut into the coving; the coving is finished with a distinctive encrusted plaster-work finish. Rosette decoration as a frieze, then boarded panelled ceiling with moulding to inset central panels and deeper inset central row of 3 panels, with 2 pendant ventilator/light fittings. Boarded dado. Wood panelled set fawr (with wrought iron scrollwork backing), fretwork decoration and turned posts to pulpit backed by an aedicule with inset panelling.

Reason for designation

Listed as a fine chapel of 1900, in an unusually coherent and strongly detailed Beaux Arts style, retaining this original architectural scheme virtually intact both externally and internally.