Capel Mawr Presbyterian Chapel

This is a Renaissance-style Presbyterian chapel, dating from the 1838 and 1856, with later extensions in 1904. The chapel is five bays long, with a projecting five-sided bay at the rear designed to house the organ. It is constructed of rubble masonry faced with yellow brick in a Flemish bond, with painted rendered dressings. The roof is pitched and covered in slate, featuring stone copings and lion's head bosses set behind the copings at the corners.

The symmetrical front elevation features windows alternating with two entrances. The door frames are detailed with segmentally pedimented architraves, a design repeated in the window heads. The panelled doors have two-pane stained glass windows above, displaying a floral design, which is echoed prominently in the upper two panes of the tall, seventeen-pane windows; those to the front have corbelled sills. The side elevations have five windows each, accentuated by stressed painted render architraves and a moulded eaves cornice.

The rear elevation mirrors the front with a pedimented design and a projecting five-sided bay of two storeys. The lower storey is rendered with banded rustication; the upper storey is brick-faced with Tuscan pilasters at each corner, a rendered cornice, and a balustered parapet above. Casement windows with nine panes over long fixed lights are located in the rear wall and one per storey on the sides. A plaque, set within a rendered pedimented surround, reads “ADDOLDY / METHODD CALFINAIDD / ADEILADWYD 1838 / AILADEILADWYD 1856 / ADNEWYDDWYD 1904”, translating to “Calvinistic Methodist Chapel – Built 1838 – Re-built 1856 – Extended 1904.”

The main entrance leads to a vestibule, with side entrances to the main chapel and stairs leading to a gallery on either side. Further doors at the east end provide access to a vestry and stairs to the right that lead to the organ gallery.

The interior features pitch pine pews arranged in a U-shape, with a central bank. A U-shaped gallery wraps around the space, with panelled fronts supported by tapering cast iron, fluted composite pillars.

The “set fawr” or main area at the west end is raised one step and rectangular, with a projecting reading desk in the centre, featuring open round arches on square pillars with cone finials on the end posts. The pulpit is square, with a projecting front featuring inset panels with rounded arches and Corinthian pillars, topped by a projecting cornice. Five curving stairs with chamfered newels topped by cone finials flank the pulpit. Behind the pulpit is a frieze of arcading with round arches, above which the organ is set into an alcove defined by an elliptical arch on Tuscan pilasters.

The highly elaborate plaster ceiling is divided into five bays, each subdivided by moulded plaster ribs into quartrefoils and squares. Projecting obelisk bosses and decorative ventilation grilles are complemented by a moulded cornice and a painted floral frieze on capitals. The walls are plastered and finished with tongue and groove panelling to the lower half, beneath a moulded floral frieze and dado rail.

Memorials include a brass plaque on the south wall dedicated to Jane Helen Rowlands, a missionary who died in 1955, and war memorial plaques from 1914-1918 and 1939-1945 located in the vestibule.