Capel Horeb and chapel house

Capel Horeb and Chapel House

A Calvinistic Methodist chapel with attached chapel house, featuring a gable entry and rendered elevations with slightly stressed scribed lintels throughout, covered by hipped slate roofs.

The chapel entrance is set in a porch with panelled double doors beneath a coloured glass fanlight, flanked by slightly advanced side vestibules. Each vestibule has a hipped roof topped with a floriate finial. The chapel windows have been replaced with modern PVCu windows designed to emulate the original margin-paned sashes in the lower sections, with the upper panes retaining the original coloured glass lights. The adjacent chapel house is set back slightly, comprising a 2-window range with a doorway to the left. This house retains its original margin-paned sashes and has a panelled door with the top panels removed and glazed, set beneath a large single-paned fanlight. To the rear stands the vestry, which has a single 4-pane sash window on the north side and two narrow windows of 2 fixed lights to the rear.

The outer doorway of the porch leads into a tiled vestibule raised by two steps on either side, from which side entrances open into the chapel. Opposite the outer doorway, the wall features tongued and grooved panelling to the lower part and a tripartite window with large frosted lower panes and coloured glass leaded lights above. The vestibule ceiling comprises five tongued and grooved recessed panels, the central one decorated with a floriate ceiling boss.

The chapel interior contains three ranks of pews, slightly raking towards the entrance. The set fawr (pulpit platform) is positioned at the opposite end, flanked by box pews. The set fawr is rectangular with a central rectangular recess at the front for the organ. It is raised by a single step with side entrances. The moulded rail is set on turned balusters above diagonally set tongued and grooved panelling within chamfered recesses. The shaped newels have large acorn finials.

The pulpit proper is set within a recessed area at the rear of the chapel, raised by three steps with side entrances. Its faces are moulded panels, with bowed panels to the rear fitted with turned balusters beneath a moulded rail which arches down to flank each side entrance. The pulpit base comprises tongued and grooved panelling, with the angles articulated by shaped newels bearing large acorn finials. Behind the pulpit, the lower walls are clad in tongued and grooved panelling, and the rear wall contains a circular coloured leaded light of four panes. The recess is set beneath a shallow elliptical arch with ovolo moulding on floriate brackets. The ceiling of the recess features similar moulded covings and a single recessed panel with a central floriate ventilation grille and radiating moulded dividers.

The main chapel ceiling comprises recessed tongued and grooved panelling, some diagonally set, with panels to each side angled down as coving. The central row contains three larger panels with floriate ventilation grilles; the central grille is larger and more elaborate, recessed within a moulded surround. The north wall of the chapel bears a grey-on-black marble memorial to men of the parish who fell in the First World War. A doorway in this wall provides access to the vestry and chapel house.