Bethel Calvinistic Methodist Chapel

This is a Calvinistic Methodist chapel, built in 1792 and considerably altered in subsequent years. The exterior is of painted stucco with a slate half-hipped roof and overhanging eaves. The long front facade features a raised plinth and rusticated quoins. It has arched openings within raised, plain surrounds incorporating shoulders and keystones. Two long central windows flank two shorter gallery lights, with two doors situated between the centre and outer windows. A plaque indicates the dates of construction, renewal (1829), rebuilding (1857), and remodelling (1881). The windows have "Florentine" tracery, consisting of two arched lights and a roundel. The doors are panelled with six long panels, each topped with a plain fanlight. The end walls are unpainted, rendered, and windowless, with a lean-to addition on the left end wall. The rear wall contains two sash windows on each floor, each with six panes, and the upper lights are set further out than those below.

The interior, dating from the 1881 remodelling, includes a three-sided gallery supported by four cast-iron columns with leaf-scroll capitals. The gallery front is constructed of pitch-pine, featuring long panels of pierced cast-iron work, likely made at the Priory Foundry, Carmarthen, in a complex and lacy pattern. Carved brackets are positioned beneath a moulded cornice, with arch-panelled pilasters between the long panels, culminating in console brackets supporting a notch-moulded top rail. The chapel is fitted with numbered pitch-pine pews arranged in three blocks, each with shaped bench ends and vertically boarded backs. Gallery pews are similarly curved to line up with the gallery front. A matching set fawr, featuring curved ends and a moulded top rail with incised roundel decoration, is also present. An ornate pitch-pine platform incorporates a projecting pulpit with three front panels, two side panels, and two platform front panels, all carved with relief fretwork. The platform features a contrasted colour, notched and moulded top rail and a broad bottom rail. A pair of turned ball-finial newels flank a panel door at the top of dog-leg steps, which are supported by a rail on the inner side, turned balusters, a steeply upswept handrail, and matching bottom newel. Small enclosed pews face the pulpit on each side, enclosing the outside of the stairs. Painted, grained matchboarding lines the walls behind the pulpit, extending outwards to box lobbies with double doors and frosted glass above. A plaster feature sits between the windows above the pulpit, incorporating pilasters, capitals, and an arch, all decorated with rosette ornament. The ceiling features a plaster cornice, deep coved sides, and a timber boarded main section with diagonal ribs forming a lozenge centrepiece radially-boarded from a central acanthus rose with enrichments.