Capel Salem (Capel y Cwm)

Capel Salem (Capel y Cwm) is a very large chapel of rock-faced rubble stone with sandstone ashlar dressings and a slate roof. Built in the round-arched style but incorporating buttresses and finials derived from late Gothic to Elizabethan architecture, it presents a striking gable-fronted composition.

The gable front is divided into a broad centre and narrow sides by buttresses banded in ashlar. The central buttresses are complex, featuring arched ashlar panels below the ground floor string course and half-octagonal applied finials above. They are set back at the level of the main window springing, again just under the gable coping, and then resume with finials. Each finial has a pedestal between moulded cornices, an octagonal shaft above, corniced and capped with an ogee. The outer buttresses are simpler, paired with similar buttresses on the side walls to clasp the angles. They have a single set-off at main window sill level and a gabled cap just below the main gable shoulder. Two short buttresses flank the centre door, with a single set-off below the string course. All buttresses rest on stepped bases; the four centre buttresses have granite foundation stones above their bases, one laid by Lord Jersey.

String courses run across the centre bay only, with another at the impost level of the large arched centre window, continued over as an arched hood. A stepped triplet window in the gable has an arched hoodmould above and a rock-faced band below. The gable apex features a complex finial of two octagonal shafts with double cornices and bell-cast caps, flanking a blank plaque with moulded cornice below over a curved apron.

The gable triplet contains arched lights beneath an arched hood, with a glazed centre light and louvred shorter side lights. The main arched centre window is large, with timber tracery in four lights and simplified Perpendicular style top lights. Narrow sandstone ashlar blank panels flank it on either side. Below the window sill is an ashlar date plaque, with a string course beneath. The ground floor contains three doors in rock-faced stone arched surrounds; the outer doors are double doors with plain fanlights, while the centre door is slightly taller and broader. Stone steps lie between the buttresses.

The narrow sides each have a single arched window per floor with sandstone ashlar head and arched hood. The chapel is two storeys tall with six windows along each side, constructed of rock-faced rubble with arched windows and stone voussoirs. The ground floor on each side has five windows and a door in the end-most position. The rear wall features an arched window on each floor flanking a two-storey gabled projection for the organ, which has a small brick stack. The rear projection has arched first floor windows and two narrow arched ground floor windows on each side. The end wall is blank.

The interior is exceptionally large, with a four-sided gallery swept down as a choir gallery behind the pulpit. Five cast iron columns with scroll caps and shaft rings (made by Macfarlane of Glasgow) support the galleries in a 5-by-1-by-5 arrangement. The gallery front is continuous cast iron in a pattern of close-set arched panels with iron foliate inserts at the base of each panel. The gallery curves at the angles and is raked at the choir gallery with ironwork correspondingly sloped. A moulded cornice runs below with a label course below the upper rail.

The ceiling features a cornice with brackets beneath moulded ribs, a deep cove, and a flat centre divided into six-by-four panels. Thirteen round vents pierce the ceiling. Pitch pine pews are arranged in three blocks, the side blocks canted. A broad curved-ended 'set fawr' (vestry bench) has a fielded panelled back and blind balustrading around the rear. An exceptionally long pulpit platform has steps up at each end, with heavy square newels, ramped rails, and carved arcaded column balusters similar to the platform front. The pulpit front is big and canted, featuring fine Art Nouveau relief-carved arched panels—two to the front and one on each side—depicting plant motifs including lily and vine.

The lobby contains a four-light leaded window with coloured glass and two half-glazed double doors. A very large organ by Peter Conacher & Co stands at the back of the choir gallery beneath a moulded arch. It has a big pipe-front with a broad centre broken forward and side pieces, with painted pipes. The gallery seats curve to follow the gallery and sweep down with stepped seats at the choir gallery. Four sets of gallery stairs ascend at the angles. A room to the rear lies under the choir gallery.