Cefn-y-Waen Chapel including Vestry/Schoolroom and forecourt walls

Cadw's description

Location

Approximately 0.7km south-east of Deiniolen, about 200m east of Eglwys Crist; front faces roughly south-west.

History

Founded 1838 when former schoolroom was converted into chapel. The present chapel was built in 1868. The attached vestry/schoolroom at right angles to rear is said to have been converted from the 1838 chapel around 1896/8, but its appearance is now all late C19.

Exterior

Romanesque style. Rock-faced stone, snecked, with buff ashlar dressings; slate roof. Good 3-bay front with giant pilasters rising to pedimented gable with stepped Lombardic cornice, and oculus. In centre bay, large wheel-window of 10 lights; below this, paired round-headed doorways, floral capitals to jambs; boarded doors with overlights. Outer bays have 2-light round-headed window above oculi with semi-circlets. Two-storey, 6-bay side elevations, round-headed windows (upper floor taller), mainly modern glazing. Rear gable has Lombardic cornice, and oculus. Forecourt walls in rubble with wrought-iron railings; gates and gatepiers to right of chapel front. Rear vestry/schoolroom at right angles, has rendered walls, slate roof; gabled porch with modern doors to right side, round-headed window to front, window to each side.

Interior

Outer vestibule with flanking stairs to gallery, inner vestibule with side doorways to 2 aisles in body of chapel. Fine ceiling with classical cornice; outer margin strip with sunk panels, the long oval panels flanked by square and octagonal panels with moulded roses. Panelled central part of ceiling is ribbed and boarded, the central octagonal panel enclosing octagonal rose; pierced ceiling vents to ends. Wall plaster scribed as ashlar, matchboard dado. Gallery on 3 sides supported on iron columns with Corinthian capitals; wooden gallery frontal with broad panels; box pews. Central block of box pews divided from blocks beneath galleries by aisles; pews adjacent to set fawr face inwards. Set fawr enclosure with panelling, above which is shallow strip of baluster arcading; bench seating built in. Panelled pulpit with heavy cornice flanked by curving stairs; behind pulpit, semi-circular arch encloses panelling with hymn board.

Vestry/schoolroom: ceiling with circular vents; scribed rendered walls, matchboard dado. Dais with lectern and balustraded parapet with square newels. Side windows and one to rear retain sash glazing with marginal bars.

Reason for designation

Chapel with particularly fine front, little-altered; good complete interior with fine panelled ceiling. Makes a striking landscape group with the nearby Eglwys Crist, the 2 buildings forming a graphic example of the C19 competition between Church and Chapel.