Tabernacl Welsh Presbyterian Chapel

Tabernacl Welsh Presbyterian Chapel

This is a Gothic-style chapel with an unusual U-shaped plan. The main body of the chapel is single-storey, with a narrow gabled entrance bay that masks the convex base of the U-shape and is flanked by small lobbies. Adjoining to the rear is a school-room and vestry block forming a cross-wing, which rises to two storeys. The entrance bay is also two-storey.

The chapel is constructed of pale grey coursed rock-faced stone under slate roofs with tile cresting, and features a metal cupola to the main ridge.

The asymmetrical gable-fronted entrance bay contains a pair of doorways separated by an angle buttress. The doorways are pointed-arched, with dressed stone voussoirs and hoodmoulds, containing double boarded doors with strap hinges. These are reached by splayed stone steps bound by widely-spaced iron railings with scrollwork. A string course marks the upper storey, which has a large 6-light Tudor-arched window with 3 cinquefoils under the arch and a continuous hoodmould. Another string course runs to the gable apex, which is of dressed stone with infilled ventilators and a ball finial.

The gabled front has buttresses at the angles. The left buttress has a gableted pinnacle, while the right is larger and rises into a narrow pinnacle spire of cruciform plan with a flying buttress onto the lobby to the right. The low flanking lobbies have 2 windows each with narrow lights. The left lobby has lancets and a pyramidal roof; the right has rectangular lights and a hipped roof. Beneath the lobby windows are stone tablets with hoodmoulds; that on the left is dated August 29th 1889, while that on the right is blind.

The main body of the chapel has a high plinth and dressed stone eaves cornice. Each side has 4 windows: 3-light wooden windows with horizontal glazing bars under 4-centred arched heads of stone voussoirs. The windows to the left of the west side and to the right of the east side are taller and feature Geometrical tracery, positioned under gables imitating transepts.

The north front of the school-room and vestry block has 5 windows to the ground floor and 6 windows to the upper floor. The windows are transomed, with stained glass above the transoms and horizontal glazing bars below. Those on the ground floor are 3-light with stone lintels and relieving arches; those on the upper storey are 2-light and positioned immediately under the eaves. The west side has a central lateral stone stack, with a boarded door with overlight to the right and an added single-storey bay to the left. The upper storey has windows like those on the north side, flanking the stack. The east side has a similar boarded door with overlight to the left, and 2 windows to the right.

The chapel is set back some distance behind forecourt gates, piers and railings that front the road. The central entrance has square gate piers of coursed rusticated stone with large moulded overhanging capstones, four-sided with trefoiled gablets surmounted by ball finials. Similar end piers are present. Between the end and gate piers, walls of snecked rock-faced stone with dressed chamfered stone copings are surmounted by plain iron railings with scrollwork motifs to the centre and decorative wave-moulded finials. Double cast iron gates feature similar finials, dog bars, a lock rail with circle motifs, and a central arch and scrollwork motifs above the lock rail.

The interior is a single-storey U-plan space with a very broad hammerbeam roof on stone corbels, with beams radiating across the wide roof. Wooden seats curve round the rear and are arranged in tiers to the sides and rear. An elaborate pulpit and Set Fawr enclosure include pierced panelling and scrolled iron rails. Above this, exposed organ pipes are arranged across the broad rear wall in 3 blocks stepped up over the pulpit.