Cof Cymru: National Historic Assets of Wales · Wales
Hope Baptist Chapel including attached vestry and schoolroom
Bridgend, Bridgend, Wales
The record
- Designation
- Listed building, Grade II
- Broad class
- Religious, Ritual and Funerary
- Date of designation
- 11 September 2003
- Locality
- Railway Station
- Community
- Bridgend
- Unitary authority
- Bridgend
- Country
- Wales
- Coordinates
- 51.50752, -3.57662
- Cadw reference
- 81346
Slide toward Today to fade the historical sheet and see the modern map underneath.
David Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford LibrariesDavid Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford LibrariesDavid Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford LibrariesDavid Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford LibrariesDavid Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford Libraries
Shown on 5 historical map sheets, the earliest the 1636 "Cornubia : Devonia, Somersetus, Dorcestria, Wiltonia, Glocestria ..." (David Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford Libraries).
Cadw's description
Location
Occupying a prominent triangular site between Station Hill and Derwen Road with attached church offices grouped around the Station Hill entrance. The main façade faces N over a walled and railed forecourt with terraced steps.
History
Built 1906-08 by Philip J Thomas of Bridgend for English-speaking Baptists. Recently cleaned and renovated externally.
Exterior
Large Gothic Revival chapel with pale sandstone dressings and grey hammer-dressed facings in thin courses; slate roofs with base of ventilator to main ridge. Three-bay gabled main façade with polygonal turrets flanking a big Geometric-traceried window with porch gable rising into blind frieze of 5 cusped panels of alternating design. Stepped buttresses flank the central doorway with deeply moulded arch-head; double boarded doors with strapwork hinges. Single cusped lancets under hoodmoulds step up to flanking stair towers under transverse slated gables; diagonal corner buttresses. Two-storey side elevations with tall return ranges forming a T-plan at S end; traceried heads to 2-light windows and square-headed ground-floor lancets. The downhill elevation to Derwen Road is 3 storeys with pointed doorway and plain sash windows to church hall. Lean-to vestries attached to S end with gables of similar church offices and Sunday School completing the group to left along Station Hill.
Interior
Spacious T-plan interior with ribbed and boarded ceiling of 5-sided profile and tie-rods linked to feet of trusses. Exceptional cantilevered gallery on metalwork frame, concealed by sinuous panelled front, sweeps forward from transepts and circles round at main N galleried end. Openwork metal-panelled front with concave palmette frieze over fluted bolection mounding; sinuous timber handrails. Full-height blind Gothic arch flanked by smaller openings rises behind polygonal reading desk with alabaster parapet to immersion pool at front. Vestibule under N gallery with twin baluster stairs to upper level. Art Nouveau patterned glass to window heads. Church hall runs under main chapel with I-beam floor joists.
Reason for designation
Listed as a prominent Edwardian chapel by a well-known Bridgend architect with an exceptional cantilevered gallery within well-preserved interior.
Nearby in the register
- Former Fire Station & Post Office Van DepotCivilunder 1 mi
- Pair of Telephone Call-boxes on the pavement outside the Head Post OfficeCommunicationsunder 1 mi
- National Westminster BankCommercialunder 1 mi
- York Tavern PHCommercialunder 1 mi
Other entries of the same register within about three miles of this one, by straight line.