Capel Tabernacl

Capel Tabernacl

A chapel comprising a freestyle 3-bay gable-end southeast front of snecked rock-faced light-grey stone added to a slightly wider earlier building behind. The front has hammer-dressed quoins and dressings, with a slate roof on a projecting stepped verge and coping on a moulded cornice. The central entrance is set within a shallow projecting porch under a cornice and contains 2 round-headed boarded doors with strap hinges and radial-glazed overlights, all framed by hooded freestone voussoirs and moulded imposts. The outer bays flanking the entrance hold windows with small lying panes. At gallery level, similar windows appear on both sides under drip moulds, with a central triple window also under a drip mould raised in the centre above a tablet inscribed "Tabernacl Adoyweiriwyd 1885". The rock-faced return walls of the entrance front contain 2 superimposed windows similar to those on the front. The side walls of the main chapel are pebble-dashed with horned sash windows with frosted glass at both ground and gallery levels.

The original 3-bay entrance front, now the rear gable end facing Chapel Street, is in simple classical style. It is constructed from crushed limestone pieces to create a flint-like effect, with freestone dressings and Bath stone quoins. The roof sits behind a coped gable on moulded kneelers with an apex finial. A central blocked round-headed doorway occupies the main bay, whilst the outer bays contain round-headed small-pane horned sash windows with radial glazing. At gallery level the central bay has a pair of similar windows set within a single round-headed arch. A quatrefoil appears in the gable.

An L-shaped vestry and school room, contemporary with the 1885 rebuilding, adjoins the southeast front on the right side. It has a projecting entrance in the angle with the chapel, fitted with double boarded doors and strap hinges under a stone hipped roof. To its right is a horned sash window of 12 lying panes. A projecting gabled bay on the right contains a tripartite 12-pane horned sash window, with its left-hand return also having a horned sash window with lying panes. The rear wall is brick. Adjoining the chapel further behind are nos. 25 and 27 Chapel Street.

The entrance vestibule contains panel doors to the main chapel on both right and left, with gallery stairs against the front wall. The stairs have a lower flight with turned balusters and newel, then a quarter turn to a panel door and closed-string upper flight. Opposite the entrance stands a free-classical war memorial tablet from 1914-19. It is round-headed with Vitruvian-scroll decoration and a billet frieze, the keystone to the arch enclosing a brass plaque below a high-relief hand holding foliage.

The main chapel has scribed plaster walls and boarded wainscots at ground and gallery level. A 3-sided raked gallery stands on cast-iron posts with moulded capitals. Its projecting front has lower boarded panels and upper panels with cast-iron grilles. A central round clock occupies a replacement fitting in an original round panel. The flat panelled ceiling features heavy moulded ribs springing from brackets with corbels at cornice level. The rear wall behind the pulpit is a false wall. Tall windows at gallery level appear to the right and left of the organ with lying panes, with similar shorter windows below the gallery.

The ramped floor contains numbered pews with shaped ends; the gallery has similar pews. The set fawr is integral with a railed enclosure in front of the pulpit, all of which is probably later than 1885. The set fawr has a lower tier of boarding and an upper tier of turned balusters and newels. The faceted pulpit has round-arch panels, with stairs to the left and right having turned balusters and newels. The vestry has a false ceiling and arcaded wainscot.