Presbyterian Chapel

Cadw's description

Location

Situated on a downhill slope, between the Radnor District Council Offices and the Albert Hall.

History

1904-5 rebuild by W Beddoe Rees of an earlier (1870) Calvinistic Methodist Chapel. Arts and Crafts Perpendicular.

Exterior

Bull-nosed rubble with freestone dressings, bell-stage of tower. Slate roofs with cresting. The main front is formed of gable-ended nave with stone parapets and Tudor octagonal turret with cap and ball finial. 5-light Perp window with louvred vent above. Heavily moulded pointed entrance arch below with broad chamfered jambs and double boarded doors with strapwork hinges. Freestone band of blind and glazed cusped lights across entrance arch bounded by stringcourses above and below and repeated at same level on two faces of the flanking bell tower. Pyramidal slate roof to tower with battlemented parapet and octagonal turret with finial. Angle buttresses to the other two corners all battered and with gabled copings. 2 louvered lights to each face of bell stage with band of blind and glazed cusped lights below.

Projecting splayed bay to right side with battlemented parapet and slate roof with cresting. Narrow lane between cement-rendered right side of church and Albert Hall. More open left side with transverse gable to middle with stone gable parapets, and 2-light plate tracery window. Other windows are 2-light with square heads to gallery level and canted to ground level.

Entered between 2 rubble gate piers with freestone dressings and ironwork gates, with attached low rubble and brick wall with iron railings above with finials and ornamentation picked out in white paint. Gate piers to ends with iron gate to right lane.

Interior

Galleried interior with mostly Gothic detailing, 4-bay rectangular nave 4-centred arched plastered vault; longditudinal rib linking ventilators with foliage surrounds and transverse ribs rising from rich foliage corbels linked to ornate cornice. 4-centred arches to gallery with stiff-leaf capitals to cast-iron colums. Bowed cast-iron gallery fronts with anthemion panels, cast-iron columns and timberwork trusses under raked galleries. Similar gallery to apsidal choir with intruded corner bays. Gallery swept down to link with platform and polygonal pulpit with good Art Nouveau detailing, ironwork handrails, also to big seat, original pews. (Original pulpit of 1870 now in schoolroom of Albert Hall).

Reason for designation

Group value.