Tabernacle Baptist Church

Location

Set back from the road at the north end of Penygarn in an area of late Victorian and modern housing but with its own quite extensive cemetery.

History

A Chapel built in 1727 with a porch added in 1925. The chapel was unused as such for some years but was re-occupied by the congregation when the Pontypool Tabernacle Baptist Church was given up in 1969.

Exterior

Dated 1727 with porch added in 1925, also dated. White-washed small rubble, the porch is squared and coursed. Stone tiled roof with bracketed eaves, end gables. Single cell rectangular building, but deliberately given the appearance of a two storey central entrance house on the outside. Two windows on upper and lower levels, square-headed in flush frames, with 9 over 9 modern, small-paned windows which have top-opening lights. Gabled stone porch with tablet - 'Erected by E Propyn, Esq. J.P. Pontypool, Deacon 1925'. Modern plank door. Small stone stack on left gable.

Rear elevation with two similar windows and a small projecting single storey wing. There is also an older central window at a lower height which originally lit the pulpit. Raking buttress. The rear elevation remains unpainted.

The chapel has a small paved area in front built up to road level with two chest tombs of interest which are listed separately.

Interior

Interior plain with pews and other furnishings from the Tabernacle Baptist Church in Pontypool town centre (now demolished). The pulpit surives but is now on the east wall. Small gallery at west end with a splat baluster front and interesting original staircase; it is recorded that there were galleries on the east and west walls as well in 1906. King post roof partly ceiled. The chapel was closed for many years as the chief Welsh Baptist congregation was at the Tabernacle Baptist Church in Crane Street, Pontypool, but this was demolished in about 1970 and the congregation moved back to the former church. It is not known when the main internal changes took place, but it was not at that time.

Reason for designation

An early Baptist Chapel in a partly altered condition; it dates from a period when it was still necessary to give a Chapel a domestic appearance.