Bethlehem Baptist Chapel

Cadw's description

Location

At south side of the A484 in the village of Pwll.

History

A chapel was built on this site in 1874. The present chapel was built in 1875 at a cost of £1800, for 117 members. A vestry was added at the E side in similar architectural style in 1898, costing £750. Baptistery before the pulpit formed in 1900. The pipe organ dates from 1967.

Exterior

Simple classical style, gable entry chapel. Main front is of irregularly coursed rock-faced sandstone masonry with ashlar quoins, including the later vestry block at left. Sides and rear rendered. Slate roof with barges on painted brackets. Cast-iron rainwater goods. Fenestration in two storeys, with sash windows above and below linked by sunk panels. The windows generally incorporate 12-pane sashes, but the glazing bars of the upper sashes of the upper windows are adapted to contain a circle concentric with the window head. Margin-light arched head windows to vestry.

Cast-iron railings and matching gates at front, with large cast-iron gateposts at the chapel entrance and smaller cast-iron gateposts at the vestry entrance.

Interior

Plain anteroom with symmetrical doors into chapel and stairs leading to gallery. Seating in four blocks with seating each side of pulpit facing inwards. Cadair fawr with curved corners. Interior dominated by a fine pulpit with two-tier hardwood panelled front decorated with Ionic pilasters. Gilded and painted metal screen to left and right of pulpit. Symmetrical pulpit stairs with similar metalwork beneath handrails. Wall to rear of pulpit is in large panels with hardwood pilasters and entablature and a central arch. Broad-panelled gallery front incorporating central clock. The gallery is carried on seven cast-iron columns. Large decorative plaster roundel at centre of ceiling.

Later vestry and schoolroom at left, the latter retaining its original fixed desks.

Reason for designation

Listed as a later C19 chapel retaining simple but distinctive exterior detail and a fine interior.