Capel Calfaria is a Grade II listed building in the Swansea local planning authority area, Wales. First listed on 23 July 1999. Chapel.

Capel Calfaria

WRENN ID
gaunt-steel-gilt
Grade
II
Local Planning Authority
Swansea
Constituency
Neath and Swansea East MP: Carolyn Harris (Lab)
Country
Wales
Date first listed
23 July 1999
Type
Chapel
Address
Capel Calfaria, Clydach
OS grid reference
SN 689 012
Coordinates
51.69456, -3.8972
Source
Cadw listing

Also on this page: flood risk · radon risk · weather exposure · detailed attributes ↓

Description

The Capel Calfaria is a chapel dating from 1868, built in the Italianate style. It is constructed of coursed squared brown rubble stone with painted ashlar dressings and a slate roof. The front facade has three bays defined by Roman Doric pilasters, a cornice, and a pediment gable. The gable includes a keyed roundel with a pierced cinquefoil. A frieze bears the inscription 'Calfaria' above 'Addoldy y Bedyddwyr A.D. 1868'. The main facade features a triple arched central window with moulded architraves, impost blocks, and keystones, alongside matching long arched side windows. All windows are timber, two-light with arched top panes and a central mullion, with leaded panes. The central entrance comprises paired arched doors with moulded arches, keystones, and thin pilaster sides. The plinth has vermiculated rustication.

The two-storey side walls are constructed of squared brown rubble stone with ashlar plain piers between, rising to a corbel table with ashlar corbels. Paired piers mark each end. Windows are framed in ashlar, arched above with moulded surrounds and impost capitals, with stone sills over the ground floor rectangular windows that feature jamb mouldings echoing the pilasters above. The timber windows throughout have leaded lights, with the upper windows incorporating arched top lights and a central mullion. The rear elevation is rendered, and a plain rear vestry is present.

The interior is broad and incorporates a three-sided original gallery, with a fourth side added in the late 19th century as an organ loft. The 1868 gallery has Jacobean style fretwork panels, separated by thin piers, curved angles, a moulded cornice below, and close-set scrolled timber brackets. Three iron columns support the gallery. There are pitch-pine pews arranged in three blocks, along with a pitch pine 'set fawr'. The simple pulpit platform is accessed by stairs with cast iron decorative balusters, and has a pulpit front which breaks forward. A painted panelled front behind the platform serves as the base for the organ gallery. A very broad pointed arch leads to the organ recess, featuring decorated plasterwork in the spandrels and outer pilasters. A large 20th-century pipe organ stands within a panelled case, featuring stepped arched frames to the pipe front. A lobby features a central coloured glass window and two doors. The ceiling incorporates a plaster cornice, a cove moulding, a plaster border, painted boarded wood, a diagonally ribbed main part, a large centre fretted timber rose, and eight fretted timber vents, four square at the angles and four round on the sides.

Local climate

Capel Calfaria sits in one of the wettest parts of the UK, with an average of 1,400 mm of rain a year. This makes it wetter than 97% of listed buildings in the UK. Its exposure to wind-driven rain is greater than that of 97% of listed buildings.

It experiences an average of 21 freeze-thaw cycles a year, fewer than 78% of listed buildings. Of these, 8 follow at least 1 mm of rain in the preceding 48 hours. Average temperatures at this location have risen by 0.3°C per decade since 1991.

Averages for 1991–2020; temperature trend 1991–2025. Figures describe the wider area (a grid cell of roughly 10 km), not the individual site. Contains modified Copernicus Climate Change Service information 2026.

More on this building

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