Caerwys Welsh Presbyterian Church, including forecourt wall and gates

Cadw's description

Location

At the E end of the street, set back from the road behind forecourt walls.

History

Originally a Welsh Calvinistic Methodist Chapel. The cause was founded in 1790, but the present chapel was built in 1862 and is shown on the 1871 Ordnance Survey. The interior was remodelled in 1893 (dates on building). The school room was added in the 1920s.

Exterior

A chapel in simple early C19 Gothic style with a gabled front of snecked stone and dressed-stone voussoirs to round-headed openings, with slate roof and conical ridge ventilator. The front has 2 large windows incorporating small-pane hornless sashes and tracery lights with intersecting Gothic glazing bars. The outer doorways have similar overlights and boarded doors. A central round-headed tablet between the windows records the founding and subsequent rebuilding of the chapel. The side and rear walls are rubble stone with bigger quoins. Both side walls have a single window similar to the front offset towards the rear, while the rear elevation has 2 windows also similar to the front.

Set back on the L side of the front is an integral low vestry with end brick stack. It has a segmental-headed small-pane hornless sash window in front and rear walls. On the R side of the front is a short link to a gabled school room of pebble-dashed walls and slate roof. The link, which houses a vestibule, has double panelled doors. The 3-window school room has horned sashes under round heads with intersecting Gothic glazing bars, of which the central window is larger and the Gothic glazing bars form an overlight. The R side wall of the school room has 2 horned sash windows beneath the eaves, while further behind is a lower kitchen projection with end stack, horned sash window with boarded door to its L.

A dwarf forecourt wall in front of the main chapel is of rock-faced stone and is surmounted by cast iron railings. It has central freestone piers with pyramidal caps and double iron gates. At the L end is a rubble-stone return wall. On the R side the forecourt wall is attached to a rubble-stone boundary wall.

Interior

Small vestibules have panelled doors and diaper floor tiles. The main chapel has a panelled ceiling and a continuous moulded impost band. The set fawr has a panelled back below an open balustrade. The splayed pulpit has similar detail. Behind it is a wood-panelled reredos. Pews have moulded ends. The school room has a single collar-beam truss.

Reason for designation

Listed for its well-preserved external character in the simple Gothic style favoured in the period, and a rare example of a mid C19 chapel not subsequently altered.