Ffaldybrenin Independent Chapel including attached building to right.

Ffaldybrenin Independent Chapel

A chapel of coursed rubble stone with banding, featuring white-painted stucco or ashlar windows and a slate roof that overhangs at the front gable. The building makes striking use of recession in its design: the first floor contains a large arched recess that extends into the gable, while side windows are set in narrow arched recesses that run down to ground level. These recesses are finished with stone voussoirs. Flush painted bands cross the gable apex, with an inscription positioned near the top of the main arched recess on either side of a small roundel, and at impost level of the side arched windows, all bands carried right across. A broad moulded band sits beneath the centre windowsills and extends to the edges of the side window recesses. A plinth runs across the sides but not the centre.

The main front comprises three arched doors with stone voussoirs and panelled surfaces, the centre door being larger. Above these are four plaques with recessed patterns: the two outer ones are squares containing quatrefoils, and the two inner ones are rectangles each containing four joined circles. The outer windows are long, narrow two-light openings with white-painted surrounds and arched heads. The two central windows are paired two-light designs with similarly short narrow arched lights, but with flush-rusticated jambs and plain roundels above, also painted but with stone voussoirs. A small roundel sits above under the arch.

The sides are plain, two-storey rendered surfaces with three windows, featuring arched upper windows with cambered lights below. The rear is rubble stone with two arched windows, stone voussoirs and marginal glazing bars.

Attached to the right is a two-storey rubble stone building, probably originally a stable beneath a vestry, with a slate roof and a chimney at the right end. This has 20th-century windows and a centre door, though two original sashes survive at first-floor level in the end wall. Access to the upper floor is via a door in the rear wall.

The interior is notably lofty, with a three-sided boarded roof carried on a plaster cornice with plaster wall-posts. The ceiling is ribbed with four small square vents and one larger pierced iron centre vent of four triangles. A fine three-sided gallery with curved angles stands on marbled iron columns with leaf capitals. Below runs a deep painted, grained cove under a fretted cornice, with vertical boarding beneath a continuous band of pierced cast iron and a moulded rail with fretted course. The cast iron is patterned with opposed rows of half-circles joined by pierced lozenges. The gallery pews are raked and curved to follow the gallery line, with boarded backs. The main pews are arranged in three blocks with outer ones canted; some inward-facing pews sit each side of the pulpit. A similar three-sided set fawr completes the seating.

The pulpit platform is substantial, with turned balusters to stairs on each side and newels of varied shapes. A timber arcaded balustrade with narrow arches borders the platform on either side of the pulpit. The pulpit itself is large, ornately grained, and canted-sided, projecting boldly into the space. Its front comprises three arched panels with a dark-grained pierced roundel above two small arched panels over a small rectangular panel. Chamfered pilasters and dark-grained impost pieces articulate the design. At the angles stand four grained Corinthian pilasters with curious finials above, set against the angles of a moulded rail. The base is chamfered back over plain panelling. Behind the pulpit, a boarded dado rises in a large plain arched recess containing a painted inscription and two marble memorials. The principal memorial, in the neo-Grec style, commemorates Evan Davies of Swansea (died 1872) and was executed by P Rogers of Swansea.

A lobby with a centre four-pane cambered-headed window and doors in the sides provides entry to the main space.