Bethel Independent Chapel

Bethel Independent Chapel is a building dating from the 18th century, exhibiting a free classical style. The front gable is finished in painted imitation stone, while the side walls are constructed of small, squared brown stone blocks, visible where the painted finish has worn. The roof is slate, topped with a large, Baroque-style timber cupola. This cupola is square with chamfered corners, featuring louvred arched openings, pilasters on the corners, and a deep cornice which projects forward diagonally. A stepped, leaded, bellcast spirelet rises from the cupola, with a square plan and a ball-and-cross finial.

The main facade is dominated by a central open-pedimented feature, decorated with flat Greek mutules to the pediment, and broad painted stone or stucco pilasters at the sides. Within this central feature is a doorcase flanked by a tripartite window. The window has small-paned side-lights and stained glass in the centre, with a broad, elliptical blind lunette above, breaking into a pediment. This lunette is decorated with stucco radiating bars and an arch, and contains a plaque in the gable above. The doorcase has a moulded surround, recessed panels inscribed “Bethel”, and a cornice above. It provides access to double doors with a leaded overlight. Narrow stone sections are located on either side of the central feature, each with a stucco block beneath a short return of the gable coping and pairs of stucco bands above and below a small rectangular ground floor window. The two-storey, four-window sides are rendered and feature a plinth, arched surrounds to the ground floor small-paned cross-windows, and three stucco roundels between the windows. Upper casement pairs are set within raised surrounds. A lower, gabled range to the rear has a door and two windows. A single-storey range dating from the 19th century, constructed of rubble stone, adjoins the rear, featuring three cambered-headed windows with stone voussoirs.

The interior, dating from 1925, is characterised by a three-sided gallery supported by six marbled iron columns with canted ends and a pitch-pine panelled front, with alternating long and square panels. A cornice runs below the gallery, and a moulded rail sits above it. The pews are made of pitch-pine, with three blocks featuring vertically boarded backs and shaped bench ends. The “set fawr” (pulpit area) has canted angles and a panelled back. The 1925 pulpit has steps on each side of the platform, with square newels and a large canted front exhibiting contrasting colours and grains in the woodwork, alongside a large roundel flanked by neo-classical reeded details springing from small roundels. A moulded cornice and top rail complete the pulpit. Behind the pulpit is a tall, plain, cambered-headed recess with high pitch-pine panelling. A lobby provides access and contains a three-light leaded window and two doors. The plaster ceiling is divided into four bays with painted timber arch-braced collar trusses resting on corbels, with the space above the collars ceiled and fitted with plain plaster roundel vents.