The Old Schoolhouse And Bethel Studio

The Old Schoolhouse and Bethel Studio comprise a 19th-century Methodist chapel, a derelict cottage, and a former schoolhouse. The chapel, dated 1842, is attached to the cottage to the south and the schoolhouse to the northeast. The chapel’s entrance front is stuccoed, while the rest of the building has painted rubble walls with slate sills. The roof is low-pitched, covered in grouted scantle slate, with gable ends. The plan is a square aisless design, with the entrance on the north side and a former rostrum at the east end.

To the left of the chapel’s entrance front is a schoolroom, now a single-storey house, with suggestions that it was originally the chapel built by Billy Bray. A later two-storey manse/cottage adjoins the chapel at the east end, one room wide and two rooms deep. The schoolroom and cottage are single-storied, but the cottage has a two-storey section under the same eaves line along the south side of the chapel.

The chapel’s north entrance front is symmetrical with a gabled shape, though partly obscured to the left by the schoolroom. It features a central round-headed doorway with tall round-headed windows on either side, and a round recessed plaque above the gable inscribed "BETHEL METHODIST CHURCH 1842". The doorway has panelled reveals, a pair of two-panel doors, and a traceried fanlight. The sash windows have 30 panes plus tracery to the tympana, though the lower half of the left-hand window is partially hidden by the schoolhouse. The east and west walls of the chapel each have two similar regularly spaced sashes with larger panes, specifically 12 panes plus tracery. Mortared arches are present. The chapel has cast iron ogee gutters. A portion of the cottage’s west wall adjoins the chapel on the right. The cottage has a gabled porch to the left, and a four-pane sash window in the centre and above. Shallow brick arches are visible. The schoolhouse's west front is rendered with a centrally located 20th-century door and flanking windows likely set within original 19th-century openings.

The chapel's interior features simple flat plaster walls and ceiling, with all original fittings removed. The original roof structure remains, consisting of four king post trusses. Nearby is the ruin of a building, said to have been built with Billy Bray’s assistance. Billy Bray (1794-1888), a resident of Twelveheads, was a miner who, after a conversion to Christianity, became a well-regarded local preacher.