Capel Coch

Capel Coch is a chapel with attached Sunday School, built in Free Classical style with Art Nouveau influences evident in the Sunday School design.

The chapel is constructed of snecked rock-faced grey rubblestone blocks with heavily tooled lighter-coloured ashlar dressings, beneath a slate roof. The entrance front is arranged in 2:3:2 pilastered bays. The centre three bays are higher and slightly projecting with a pedimented break; the outer sections have pediments to the returns. The upper stage features round-headed windows with banded pilasters and keystones to moulded surrounds. The centre bays have plain Doric columns separating the windows, with plain bases inscribed with the dates "1802, 1834, 1846 and 1864" from left to right. The windows are all fixed light, with 18 panes to the centre bays and 12 panes to the outer bays. Blind rectangular panels appear above and below the centre windows, over which rises a moulded pediment with a blind oculus in scrolled surround at the centre.

On the ground stage, beneath a stone entablature inscribed "1777 CAPEL COCH 1893", three round-headed arches with matching window detailing contain 4-panel doors with plain fanlights, separated by tapering Doric pilasters. The outer bays at ground level have paired 8-paned windows in plain banded surrounds. The return walls, including slightly projecting pedimented end bays to the east, are arranged in 5 pilastered bays (the south side is entirely slate hung) with a plain corbel table above the round-arched first-floor window openings. These contain 10-paned sashes with margin lights. Similar 8-paned sashes with margin lights sit in rectangular openings at ground stage, with continuous cill bands to both tiers of windows.

The Sunday School, in darker grey rubblestone similarly snecked, is attached to the west gable end. It has paired timber-framed gables breaking the eaves roughly to centre, containing full-height multi-paned sash windows with central mullions and fixed-light sections above high transoms. Similar paired windows without the fixed-light sections appear to left and right. The entrance to the far left is a recessed doorway in gentle bow with the inscribed date "1909" above a recessed overlight and narrow windows to either side. A hip-roofed porch to the right has a window to the front and door to the left return; the right side features a tripartite sash window.

The chapel interior is richly decorated with a ribbed and panelled plaster ceiling featuring exuberant ornamentation, including medallions, floral motifs, pendant ventilators and drop pendants for light fittings. The decoration is most elaborate to the three inner panels. An egg and dart moulding runs along the cornice, which has a frieze below with enriched cushioned consoles supported by plain full-height pilasters with gilded Corinthian capitals, partly concealed by the gallery. The gallery is panelled with a dentilled cornice to its underside, supported by 7 fluted cast-iron columns. A Victorian clock stands at the entrance lobby end. Raking box pews occupy both the gallery and ground floor.

The set fawr has a panelled enclosure with Jacobean detailing to turned balusters and finials. A lectern dated "1901" sits within, along with a panelled pulpit and organ loft behind. Two chairs dated "1893" are also present. The carved organ occupies the full space of a round-arched recess with fluted Corinthian pilasters, moulded surround and key-block. Low half-glazed doors with stained glass in the walls on either side of the set fawr lead to the Sunday School and rooms beyond. At the opposite end of the chapel, half-glazed double doors lead to the entrance lobby, which contains a round-headed window with stained glass in the internal wall, an encaustic tile floor, and opposed staircases with square newels chamfered at the top with ball finials, leading to the gallery.

The Sunday School is approached up steps from doors on either side of the set fawr. It has its own simpler set fawr with pedimented capitals to the newels of the enclosure, set within a round-headed arch with key-block. A hammerbeam roof spans 4 bays with a boarded ceiling, and the floor is woodblock. Two further rooms lie beyond the Sunday School: the smaller has a staircase with a square newel and turned balusters rising to the upper floor; the larger features a folding half-glazed screen to form smaller spaces.