Salem Baptist Chapel

Salem Baptist Chapel is a chapel dating from the 18th century, constructed of rock-faced coursed rubble stone with Bath stone dressings and a slate roof. The building exhibits a Romanesque style winged facade, with a central coped gable flanked by steep hipped roofs over external stairs, finished with iron cresting. The main gable projects and features ashlar quoins and a plinth, with a large Romanesque stepped arched triplet of windows on each floor, the ground floor having a door flanked by single lights, and the first floor featuring a larger centre window flanked by single lights. Both floors have coloured voussoirs and thick column shafts with carved capitals. The ground floor tympanum above the panelled doors and lights displays punched roundel patterns in the ashlar. The first floor has a centre 2-light window below three roundels, with flanking single lights and roundels, all in unmoulded ashlar. A moulded impost cornice is present on each side, aligned with the corbelled eaves cornice of the stair towers. The gable apex is characterised by 9-bay stepped arcading with stilted heads on 10 diminishing columns. The side bays have similar quoins, plinth, and long single windows with flush rusticated jambs and bi-colour voussoirs to the arches, with a roundel above each recessed ashlar single light window.

The 2-storey, 4-bay sides feature 2-light windows in flush ashlar surrounds, each with paired arched heads above and paired cambered heads below, all featuring bi-colour voussoirs. The rear has a coped gable.

Inside, the chapel has galleries on three sides, supported by 3x1x3 cast iron columns by Bright & Garrard of Carmarthen, featuring large scrolled foliate capitals. The galleries are curved at the angles and project from a cornice over the columns, supported by carved brackets with panelling to the underside. The gallery front has a moulded cornice under long panels of vertical boarding, with strips of pierced cast iron forming a pattern of crosses in quatrefoils – a design also found at Ebeneser Chapel, Crwbin of 1892. Plain pilaster strips are between the long panels, with a moulded top rail. A central clock is present. The chapel contains pine pews with boarded backs in three blocks, with simpler pews on the gallery level also having boarded backs. Coloured patterned glass is incorporated into the main window behind the gallery. The lobby has a 3-light window with double doors in canted sides. A 3-sided set fawr features open Gothic arcading. A low platform has steps up each side and similar Gothic arcading with scrolled iron inserts. Chamfered square newels with pyramid finials are in place. Panelling behind the central bay shows a large plaster arched feature with a stepped triple arcade, the centre broader with a roundel, the sides narrower with stilted heads, four column shafts and another roundel between the centre arch and the main over-arch.

The roof incorporates 4-bay arched-brace collar trusses on corbels, with a ceiled slope and at collar level, and a plaster lozenge in each bay.